HANDBOOK TO THE WORKS
OF
DANTE
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
PORTUGAL STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL& co.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER & CO.
HANDBOOK TO THE WORKS
OF
DANTE
BY
F. J. SNELL, M.A.
AUTHOR OF "THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY," "TH E AGE OF
CHAUCER," "THE AGE OF TRANSITION," ETC. ETC.
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1909
VNCliRY LANE, LONDON.
PREFACE
THIS work is designed as an introduction
to Dante's works in general, and the
" Commedia " in particular. It has not been at-
tempted to deal with the various writings in
chronological sequence, partly because there is
no sort of certainty on the point, and partly
because it has been my object to take up the
different subjects relating to and treated by
Dante in the order most advantageous to the
understanding of his artistic and philosophical
development, beginning with the bare facts of
his life, proceeding to his intellectual inherit-
ance, and concluding with the triumph of his
poetical powers in their full splendour.
Dante literature is so vast that no individual
scholar can pretend to have read and digested
it all, but I have sought to profit by the labours
of distinguished contemporaries. At the same
time I have made a special and independent
study of Dante's writings, with which I have
been familiar from early youth.
v
2041914
vi PREFACE
It should be pointed out that the references
throughout are to the third edition of the ex-
cellent " Oxford Dante," while the translations,
unless otherwise stated, are those of Longfellow.
F. J. SNELL.
TlVERTON,
NORTH DEVON,
2$th August, 1909.
CORRIGENDA
On p. 7 4 for " Marseilles " read " Marseille."
,, p. 12$ for "Curatii" read "Curiatii."
,, p. 140 for "Tresor" raza? "Tresor."
,, p. 226 for " Milanesi " read " Ed. Milanesi."
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
PREFACE v
BOOK I
OUTER LIFE AND LATIN WRITINGS
PART I
BIOGRAPHICAL
I. LIFE OF DANTE i
II. EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 29
PART II
ARTISTIC
I. DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE .... 69
II. THE DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA .... 83
PART III
POLITICAL
I. THE DE MONARCHIA PRELIMINARY . . 117
II. THE DE MONARCHIA THE ARGUMENT . 126
POSTSCRIPT 139
vii
viii CONTENTS
BOOK II
INNER LIFE AND ITALIAN WRITINGS
PART I
MORAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE VITA NUOVA 145
II. THE CANZONIERE 191
III. THE CONVIVIO 232
PART II
SPIRITUAL
I. THE COMMEDIA MECHANISM . . . . 271
II. THE COMMEDIA PRINCIPLES AND SYM-
BOLISM 309
EPILOGUE
CHARACTERISTICS 351
INDEX 372
BOOK I
OUTER LIFE AND LATIN WRITINGS
PART I
BIOGRAPHICAL
HANDBOOK TO DANTE
CHAPTER I
LIFE OF DANTE
" T^V ANTE was not good company, and was not
i J invited to dinner." This remark of Emerson,
applicable to the later, rather than the earlier, phases
of the poet's life, but more or less relevant to the
whole, is eminently suggestive. If Dante had been of
a sociable temperament, and less at odds with Fortune,
much more that is authentic might have been recorded
of him, and it is conceivable that he might have be-
queathed, if not a complete autobiography, cheerful
and copious accounts of his outward experiences.
What he has actually left consists of little more than
cryptic allusions to certain incidents of his youth and
abundant evidence of his interest in the vivid politics,
the scholastic learning, the art and literature of his
time. The man has been, in a great measure, lost in
the politician and the thinker. Dante, in fact, has
observed too faithfully the formula, which he himself
lays down, that it is not permitted to a writer to speak
of himself. 1
1 "Convivio," i, 2.
3
4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
The period of Dante's life intellectually most fruit-
ful was passed in exile and poverty; and well may
Carlyle say of him: "An unimportant, wandering,
sorrow-stricken man, not much note was taken of him
while he lived; and most of that has vanished in the
long space that now intervenes." Dante's loneliness
was, in part, the fruit of distasteful opinions fearlessly
avowed, but not entirely so. His elevated character
manifested itself in silence and reserve, or in masterful
self-assertion. His manners were not conciliating; he
calls himself an alma sdegnosa, and such his country-
men found him. There can be no suspicion of pre-
judice in Villani's portrait: "This Dante, from his
knowledge, was somewhat presumptuous, harsh and
disdainful. Like an ungracious philosopher, he scarcely
deigned to converse with laymen, but for his other
virtues, science, and worth as a citizen, it seems but
reasonable to give him perpetual remembrance in this
our chronicle."
While Dante himself was conscious of his extra-
ordinary powers, the men and women of his own
generation had no adequate conception of his genius.
It was only towards the close of his life, and perhaps
not then, that his reputation became full-orbed. Mean-
while his peregrinations were incessant. For all these
reasons the precise circumstances of his earthly pil-
grimage are shrouded in mystery, and have given
occasion to endless controversy and contradictions.
When, too late, a sense of his greatness dawned on
his repentant compatriots, homage was paid to his
memory in a series of " romances " commencing with
LIFE OF DANTE 5
Boccaccio's " Trattatello " and ending with Balbo's
Life. Whether the neglect of former ages can be
repaired by modern heroic research is doubtful.
Scartazzini avers that in time a really scientific and
possibly complete biography of Dante will be written,
but he adds pathetically, " my eyes will certainly not
behold it." Criticism in these last days has played
havoc with much that our predecessors received as
fact, and the tendency to depreciate Boccaccio's tes-
timony is most marked. But this severe attitude
towards Dante's illustrious panegyrist has not been
universal, Witte, for example, being willing to concede
far higher value to his evidence than is commonly
accorded to it.
i. BIRTH AND PARENTAGE
Dante (or Durante) Alighieri was born at Florence
on some date between i8th May and ryth June, 1265.
From his deep veneration for St. Lucia, who, it may
be recollected, is a beneficent and influential person-
age in the " Commedia," it has been conjectured that
he came into the world on her feast-day, 3oth May.
The homes of the Alighieri were situated in the
quarter of the Porta San Piero, near the Piazza San
Martino. They no longer remain, and the house
indicated by the official tablet is not that in which
Dante first saw the light. He was baptized at the
church of "my beautiful St. John," as he calls it.
Here also the ancestor, whom he regarded with most
pride, "Christian and Cacciaguida became"; and
Dante in his great poem pauses to record that he had
6 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
broken one of the stones of the ancient baptistery to
save some one who was drowning. 1 At the close of his
life he cherished a fond hope of receiving the laurel
crown at his baptismal font.
Throughout his writings Dante preserves the most
absolute silence concerning his parents and kindred
with one remarkable exception. In the " Paradise "
he introduces the aforenamed Cacciaguida in a way
that suggests that he was the source of whatever pre-
tensions Dante may have had to nobility of birth :
I was thine own root. 2
Cacciaguida had been knighted by the Emperor
Conrad (1137-1152), and in 1147 accompanied that
monarch on a crusade to the Holy Land, where the
valiant Florentine was slain by the infidels. He
had two brothers, Moronto and Eliseo, and a son
Aldighiero, " from whom is named thy race," and who
was Dante's great-grandsire. Cacciaguida further in-
forms his descendant that his wife came to him from
the Val di Pado, and that Dante's surname was
derived from that place. Probably the lady was of
Ferrara. Aldighiero had a son Bellincione, mentioned
in old documents as a member of the Council and a
popolano. Then came another Aldighiero, who seems
to have been "a slight, unmeritable man," and is
usually stated to have been a lawyer. He was Dante's
father, and Forese Donati cast the circumstance in the
poet's teeth :
Well know I thou wast Alighieri's son.'
" Inf." xix, 19-20. - "Par." xv, 89. 3 Son. LIV, i.
LIFE OF DANTE 7
The name now became the family cognomen. It
is said to be of German origin, and to signify "ruler
of the spear." ' Strange that the names of the world's
greatest poets should so nearly correspond !
Dante says of nobility:
There where appetite is not perverted,
I say in Heaven, in thee I made my boast. 2
In the face of this statement it may seem captious
to raise doubts as to the standing of the family, but,
in point of fact, there has been a good deal of dis-
cussion as to the worldly position of the Alighieri.
Boccaccio declares that they were a branch of the
Elisei one of Cacciaguida's brothers was called Eliseo
and that the Elisei were descended from the Frangi-
pani of Rome. This last touch may be a pure embel-
lishment, but it would hardly have been added if the
Elisei had not been eminently respectable. If Dante's
immediate ancestors were considered Elisei, this would
explain why they are not named in Villani's lists of
exiled nobles. The general character of the evidence
inclines one to think that Dante was what is com-
monly called a gentleman, notwithstanding the fact
that, in accordance with the traditions of the poetical
school to which he belonged, he declaimed against
Frederick II's definition of nobility as "ancient riches
and good manners." He appears to have had ample
leisure in his youth for acquiring learning and engaging
in the pleasant, but far from lucrative, pursuit of the
Muse.
1 Federn, "Dante and his Time," p. 197.
2 "Par." xvi, 5-6.
8 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
2. EDUCATION
Dante tells us practically nothing about his child-
hood, except that, towards the close of his ninth year,
he fell in love for the first time. By the time he was
eighteen he taught himself the art of rhyming an art
in which most poets are self-schooled. As regards
more ordinary accomplishments, we find that Dante
was under some obligation to Brunetto Latini (or
Latino), but it is difficult to believe that this dis-
tinguished writer and statesman was Dante's school-
master. However, it may have been so. Dante says
to him:
In the world from hour to hour
You taught me how a man becomes eternal. l
Villani describes Brunetto as " a very great master
of rhetoric," and states that he moulded the Flor-
entines into expert speakers. Rhetoric, which Dante
calls " the sweetest of all the sciences," was concerned
not so much with elocution as with composition and
style, and examples were drawn from the great writers
of antiquity, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, etc. Pupils
were initiated into the whole art of expression from
the nice choice of words to the construction of a
pompous and well-balanced period, much as we find
in the " De Vulgari Eloquentia." In imparting to
Dante a sense of literary form Latini rendered him a
priceless service without it he might never have
achieved the immortality which he foresaw was to be
1 " Inf." xv, 84-5.
LIFE OF DANTE 9
his portion. But, before Dante could profit by such
instruction, he had to acquire a knowledge of Latin
"grammar," as it was termed. Of this preliminary
study he tells us no more than that he learnt Latin
through the medium of Italian, and he expresses
gratitude, not to any individual teacher, but to his
mother-tongue, which certain sciolists were in the
habit of disparaging. 1
Dante lost his father in boyhood possibly as early
as 1270. His mother, a Donna Bella, had predeceased
her husband, who had then married a lady named
Lapa Cialuffi, and had issue a son Francesco, and a
daughter (name unknown), who wedded one Leone
Poggi. It is worth noting that Cialuffi and Poggi are
both plebeian names. There is no evidence to show
upon what terms Dante lived with his father's second
family, but, bearing in mind the proverbial harshness
of stepmothers, it would not be surprising if his
childish years were somewhat clouded. As he speaks
of Brunetto's " dear and kind paternal image," it is
just possible that the latter stood in loco parentis to
him, caring for his general interests and superintend-
ing his studies.
Brunette was the author of a French encyclopaedia
entitled "Le Tresor," and thus it seems probable that
Dante was indebted to him, amongst other things, for
his early acquaintance with North French and Pro-
vengal literature. If, as has been suspected, Dante's
first sonnet, written in his eighteenth year, was suggested
by &planh of Sordello, he would already have possessed
1 "Convivio," i, 13.
io HANDBOOK TO DANTE
some familiarity with the poetry of the Troubadours,
as well as with that of the Italian dicitori, whose verdict
he challenged.
From his statements in the " Convivio " l one would
infer that until he was twenty-five he devoted himself
to belles lettres, and cared little for philosophy and
science, his study of which dated from that period. At
some time in his life, however, he proceeded to the
famous university of Bologna, and, although Boccaccio
does not explain whether this was before or after
Dante's exile, it would perhaps be more natural to
understand by the allusion that the poet completed
his education, in the ordinary sense of the phrase, at
that seat of learning, and there acquired the seven
liberal arts grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic,
music, geometry, and astronomy. Villani informs us
that Dante visited Bologna and Paris after his exile
from Florence, and there is little doubt that he went
on "hiving knowledge" to the end of his days. It
is not impossible that he resided at Bologna on two
separate occasions once in his youth, and subse-
quently in his mature manhood. There is nothing in
his writings that would lead us to conclude that he ever
left Florence for the purpose of obtaining instruction,
but, in view of his colossal attainments, it is hard to
believe that he did not undergo systematic training in
his adolescence. This conclusion, however, is rather
opposed to his own account in the " Convivio," which
leaves the impression that, beyond a bare knowledge
of Latin, he gained his store of erudition by his own
1 ii, 13-
LIFE OF DANTE IT
efforts and attendance at the disputations of the filo-
sofanti at Florence, when he had lost Beatrice. 1 It is
quite possible that Brunetto Latini was one of the
lecturers, and that Dante's friendship with him was
cemented, if it did not originate, when the poet was
between twenty and thirty years of age. Still, there is
an air of probability about Boccaccio's assertion that
Dante learned various sciences, at various ages, and
under various teachers. No great writer impresses us
less as being self-taught.
3. FRIENDSHIPS
It is believed by some writers that Dante, when a
young man, entered freely into the social pleasures of
his native city. " We must imagine him," says Federn,
" in the gay feasts of Florence, of which the chroniclers
tell, with their baldechins and tribunes hung with
wreaths of flowers, the great festival of St. John's Day,
when the young men clad in white, led by the Signor
d'Amore, went singing and dancing up the street of
Santa Felicita, and women and girls also in wreaths of
flowers partook of the festivities, and music and song
and ringing bells filled the air with joyful sounds. It
was still the time of fine chivalrous manners, the time
of troubadours and of minstrelsy." 2 Dante, no doubt,
witnessed such scenes, and, with his keen sense of the
picturesque, must have appreciated their effectiveness.
1 See chapter on the " Vita Nuova," in which Dante's love
for Beatrice fair lady or phantom is fully discussed.
2 Op. cit. p. 200.
12 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
But it may be questioned whether he shared in them.
He was constitutionally studious and shy; and, in
later life, he had a positive aversion for the bold
manners of the Florentine ladies. Even in his youth
he expressed a desire to exchange the riot of the city
for the solitude of the wide ocean, in company with
chosen friends.
Aloofness from the common concerns of life was
characteristic of the school of poets to which Dante
belonged, and, notably, of Guido Cavalcanti, its most
eminent representative and Dante's chief friend. Boc-
caccio tells us that the gentlemen of Florence had a
kind of convivial club, which met at their respective
houses; and on one day of the year they used to ride
"triumphantly" through the city, "performing tilts,
tourneys, and other martial exercises." Persistent
efforts were made to induce Cavalcanti to join this
club, but without success. 1 If Dante took part in social
functions of any kind, it is far from unlikely that he
attended the dinners of this joyous fraternity. It is
beyond a doubt that, after the death of Beatrice, he
fell into evil courses, and had a boon companion in
Forese Donati, a great glutton. Guido Cavalcanti, who
had praised his maiden effort in poetical composition,
admonished him for his temporary lapse in scathing
terms :
I come to thee by daytime constantly,
But in thy thoughts too much of baseness find ;
Greatly it grieves me for thy gentle mind
And for thy many virtues gone from thee :
" Decameron," vi, 9.
LIFE OF DANTE 13
It was thy wont to shun much company,
Unto all sorry concourse ill-inclined;
And still thy speech of me heart-felt and kind
Had made me treasure up thy poetry.
But now I dare not, for thy abject life,
Make manifest that I approve thy rhymes;
Nor come I in such sort that thou may'st know.
Oh ! prythee, read this sonnet many times,
So that that evil one who bred this strife
Be thrust from thy dishonoured soul, and go. '
Cavalcante, Guide's father, is placed among the un-
believers in the " Inferno," 2 and Guido himself was
regarded as an atheist. Indeed, despite his pilgrimage
to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, his sceptic
ism may be considered proved. Among Dante's liter-
ary friends were Lapo Gianni and Cino of Pistoia, the
latter of whom stood very high in Dante's esteem, and
is constantly cited in the " De Vulgari Eloquentia " in
conjunction with "his friend," i.e., Dante himself. It
may be observed, in passing, that Cino indited a .son-
net on the death of Beatrice, and there is ample evi-
dence that these poets formed a kind of brotherhood
not devoid of that "vainglory" which Bacon discovered
and condoned in noble intellects.
A musical acquaintance of Dante was Casella,
Whom he woo'd to sing
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory. 3
The affectionate character of their meeting leaves
no atom of doubt as to the reality of their friendship.
1 Rossetti's tr. 2 C. x.
3 Milton, Sonnet to Mr. H. Lawes.
i 4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
The same certainty cannot be felt in the case of the
artist Giotto. Faith in Dante's acquaintanceship with
him depends on a tradition preserved by Benvenuto
da Imola, and others of a later date, but it is a tradi-
tion which the world will surrender very unwillingly,
since it has some bearing on the genuineness of the
portrait of the poet attributed to Giotto. It is reassur-
ing that Kraus, who has gone fully into the subject,
accepts the {portrait as authentic, and believes that it
was executed between 1334 and 1337 many years
after Dante's decease.
4. MILITARY SERVICE
On nth June, 1289, the Florentines fought the
fuorusciti) or banished Ghibellines, and their allies of
Arezzo, in the plain of Campaldino, now a paradise
of fruitful vines, and defeated them. Bruni states that,
in one of his letters, Dante records that he was present
at this combat, in the front ranks of the cavalry, and
describes himself as being then " no child in arms."
It is possible, therefore, that he took part in the opera-
tions of the previous year, when the same two cities
were at war. In the August of 1289, or, according
to Del Lungo, in 1290, the Pisan town of Caprona
capitulated to the joint forces of Florence and Lucca;
and, if Benvenuto may be believed, Dante was in this
expedition also. Allusions to both the battle and the
siege occur in the "Commedia," 1 and Dante speaks as
if he had been an eye-witness of the occurrences.
1 " Purg." v, 22; " Inf." xxi, 95.
LIFE OF DANTE 15
5. POLITICS AND MARRIAGE
The spirit of faction ran riot in the cities of Italy,
and nowhere more than at Florence, in which, as in
neighbouring communities, the inhabitants were divided
into well-defined, historical parties, known as Guelfs
and Ghibellines. In the broadest sense the former
supported the Pope in his claim to theocratic govern-
ment, and favoured democratic constitutions in the
urban republics ; the latter were adherents of the Em-
peror, and formed the aristocratic element in the
municipalities. Dante's family was Guelf, and Dante
himself remained a member of that party until after
his banishment, when he substantially adopted the
political creed of the Ghibellines. Guelf and Ghibel-
line are really disguised German names, the former
representing Welf and the latter Waiblingen: and,
originally, the rivalry the terms import lay between
the House of Hohenstaufen and the Saxon Dukes of
Bavaria. In Italy local feuds were often the true
source and life of these divisions. The " Commedia "
contains a number of allusions to Florentine history, 1
and Dante accepts the traditional account of the
formation of the parties in his own city, tracing it to a
quarrel between the Amidei and'the Buondelmonti in
the year 1215. As we shall see, Dante's exile was due
to a reconstitution of the factions, or, it may be more
correct to say, a split in the ranks of the victorious
Guelfs, arising from a family difference that had no-
thing to do with high politics.
1 See especially " Par." xvi.
1 6 HANDBOOK. TO DANTE
Dante's entrance into the stormy arena of public
affairs is ascribed by Boccaccio to his marriage, which
took place in the last decade of the thirteenth century,
apparently about the year 1 292. His bride was Gemma,
daughter of Manetto Donati, who was a member of a
family famous in the annals of Florence. The pair
had four children, Pietro, Jacopo, Antonia, and
Beatrice, though doubt has been entertained about
the last, whilst some biographers say that there were
seven children in all. Dante nowhere mentions his
wife by name, and the character of their relations has
been warmly debated. Boccaccio states that, after the
separation necessitated by Dante's banishment, he had
no wish for his wife's society; and this assertion has
led to the conclusion that the fault was wholly or
mainly on Gemma's side that she was, in fact, a
shrew. We learn, however, from the same authority,
that she was a good mother and a careful housewife,
and Dante's distinction as a poet is no guarantee that
he was a model husband. Probably it was a marriage
of convenience, not of affection, and is said, indeed, to
have been arranged by Dante's relations as a remedy
for his distress on account of the death of his first love.
Dante was twenty-eight years of age when the drastic
reform of Giano della Bella was accomplished. The
grandi, or nobles, of Florence were a turbulent class,
and broke the peace of the city by frequent battles in
the streets. In order to check their arrogance, Giano
formulated certain "ordinances of justice," by which
thirty-seven families were perpetually excluded from
the sinoria or government; and that the statute might
LIFE OF DANTE 17
not be evaded, no one belonging to any of these families
was permitted to abdicate his rank and descend to the
level of an ordinary citizen. The execution of justice
was confided to a Gonfalonier (standard-bearer), who
was empowered to take summary action against noble
offenders by attacking them with the militia, razing
their houses, and haling them before the podesta, or
chief magistrate always a foreigner to be punished
according to their guilt.
The basis of the new constitution was the guilds,
and only those who were enrolled in one or other of
these trade unions were qualified to take part in public
administration. On attaining the legal age of thirty,
Dante was entered in one of the seven Greater Guilds
that of the physicians and apothecaries, in which
artists were included. He was elected to the Council
of the Podesta, and that of the Capitudini, or Heads
of the Guilds; and in another council that of the
Hundred Men we find him an active debater, oppos-
ing, perhaps, a grant of money to Charles the Cripple,
King of Jerusalem and Apulia, in support of his cam-
paign against the rebels of Sicily.
During his six years of service from 1295 to 1301
Dante is credited with the performance of no fewer
than fourteen separate embassies. This is a palpable
exaggeration, contradicted by the ascertained fact that
in the years when he is represented as journeying to
Naples, Rome, Hungary, and France, he was almost
continuously at Florence. It is known, however, that
he went on a mission to the tiny republic of San
Gemignano, in connection with the renewal of the
c
i8 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Guelfic League. This was in May, 1299. One homely
piece of information is that he was chosen to super-
intend the repairs of Via di San Procolo, 1 which is a
tribute to his versatility, and seems like a forecast of
the engineering skill displayed in his construction of
the Inferno.
From the middle of June to the middle of August,
1 300, Dante was one of the six priors who constituted
the signoria. His promotion to this office undoubtedly
proves that he enjoyed the respect and confidence of
his fellow citizens, but we must beware of attaching
too much importance to the distinction. As the tenure
of the magistracy was limited to two months, and it
was shared with five colleagues, it is evident that
many Florentines could boast the same honour. To
Dante the preferment was the cause of most of his
woes. The Ghibellines had been expelled or deposed,
but the Florentine community was now divided into
Bianchi and Neri (whites and blacks). The infection
was imported from Pistoia, where the numerous de-
scendants of one Messer Cancelliere, with their friends,
formed hostile camps, calling themselves Cancellieri
Bianchi and Cancellieri Neri respectively. The people
of Pistoia invoked the mediation of the Florentines,
who entered the city and relegated the furious partisans
to the neighbourhood of Florence. The result of this
ill-judged proceeding was that the Bianchi took refuge
in the houses of their kinsmen the Cerchi, and the
Neri in those of Frescobaldi, and the feud was ex-
tended to Florence.
1 Now the Via cle' Pandollini.
LIFE OF DANTE 19
This was the difficult situation with which the Priors
were confronted in 1300, and they attempted a solu-
tion by banishing the chiefs of the Neri to the Cas-
tello della Pieve, and those of the Bianchi to Sarzana.
Amongst the latter was Guido Cavalcanti, who, having
sickened in the pestilential air of Sarzana, was per-
mitted to return to Florence, where he soon died. It
has been frequently cited as a notable instance of
Dante's inflexible justice that he should have con-
curred in this treatment of his greatest friend, but the
order of events as recorded by Villani renders it cer-
tain that Dante was no longer in office when this
measure was adopted. Not unnaturally, the Ghibel-
lines sought to make capital out of these troubles by
promises of good government, and members of that
party were creeping into public positions, to the no
small alarm of the Guelf leaders.
For a time the Bianchi held the upper hand; their
opponents were detected in a conspiracy, and the
Neri chiefs, who had been allowed to return, were
once more banished in June, 1301. In this same
month Dante voted with the minority of the Council
of the Hundred Men against furnishing troops to the
Pope. Already he had been drawn into the vortex of
faction and passed for a Bianco.
But it is time that we turned our attention to the
actions of the Holy See, since Dante attributes his
exile directly to Boniface VIII. During the poet's
term of office as prior, the Pope despatched Cardinal
Matteo d'Acquasparta to Florence with the title of
peacemaker. Boniface had revived the pretensions of
2 q HANDBOOK TO DANTE
his predecessors to universal jurisdiction, and when
Albert of Habsburg had applied for the Pope's con-
firmation of his election as emperor, he had replied
haughtily Ego sum imperator. It would seem also that
the Pontiff laid special claim to Tuscany, as the
former domain of the Countess Matilda, who, in 1175,
had bequeathed her patrimonial estates to the Church.
On his arrival the Cardinal was received by the
Florentines with acclamation, but soon their sus-
picions were aroused. "Those," says Villani, "of the
White party, who directed the government of the
country, from a fear of being deprived of their posi-
tion and being deceived by the Pope and the Legate
. . . would not obey; for which reason the said Legate
was angered, returned to court, and left Florence ex-
communicated and under an interdict." l Dante, as
one of the priors, was responsible for the disobedience
to Papal authority, and became a marked man. Sub-
sequent events tended to widen the breach. When
the rest of the Neri returned to Florence, Corso
Donati remained at Rome inflaming the Pope's mind
against the Bianchi, whom he represented as little
better than Ghibellines. Then came Dante's resolu-
tion, quod de servitio faciendo domino papae m 'hi 7 fiat,
which must have appeared to the Curia convincing
proof of his contumacy.
6. EXILE
In 1301 the Pope, who was in secret league with
the Neri, resolved to appoint a fresh peacemaker, and,
1 viii, 40.
LIFE OF DANTE 21
on ist November, Charles of Valois, brother of Philip
le Bel of France, entered Florence with an unarmed
retinue. He had previously given a written assurance
to the Priors that he would not act the part of a
sovereign, but his peaceful professions were soon be-
lied by the treacherous prince, who demanded large
subsidies and stationed guards at the gates. Corso
Donati, an ominous figure, rode into the city, attended
by many friends, and a veritable panic ensued. The
great bell was tolled, but there was no response to the
summons, and the Priors, having resigned their offices,
were succeeded by a signoria of the Neri party, who
retaliated on their opponents in the most terrible
fashion. Banishment, confiscation, and demolition of
property were the order of the day.
A new podesta, Cante de' Gabrielli, of Agubbio
fulminated a decree against Dante and four associates,
in which they were sentenced to a fine of 5,000 gold
florins for various crimes, such as fraud, peculation,
bribery, and rebellion against the Pope and his Vicar.
In default of payment within three days their posses-
sions were to be forfeited and they were to be banished
from the province of Tuscany for two years. Whether
payment were made or not, they were declared in-
capable of ever holding any office under the Republic.
This decree was dated 2yth January, 1301-2. On
ist March another decree was issued, in which it was
set out that, the accused having neither obeyed the
summons nor paid the fine, their exile was made per-
petual, and any of them who entered Florentine terri-
tory was condemned to be burnt alive. In 1311, and
22 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
again in 1315, the sentence of outlawry was confirmed,
and twenty years after his death, Dante was still, to
Florentine officialdom, a rebel and a peculator.
Dante constantly affirmed his innocence of the
crimes laid to his charge, and till recent years his
denial, combined with the testimony of all his bio-
graphers and the Guelf historian Villani, has seemed
adequate disproof of the accusations levelled at him.
Papa points out, however, that corruption was then
almost universal, and Englishmen will naturally recall
that the names of Bacon and Marlborough are sullied
by dishonesty, proving that genius in itself is no safe-
guard against this particular weakness. Dante was
overwhelmed with debt, and that would have made
the temptation all the stronger. In one of his canzoni
there is a passage which, in the opinion of some,
amounts to a confession that he was not entirely free
from blame. 1 Still, we should hesitate to construe it
as an admission that he was justly condemned. The
person who obtained possession of Dante's property
was Boccaccio Adimari, whose violence and rapacity
inspired the allusion to
The insolent race that like a dragon follows
Whoever flees, and unto him that shows
His teeth or purse is gentle as a lamb.' 2
Dante never forgave those who had been concerned
in bringing about his exile. Boniface and Corso
Donati, especially, were the objects of his vindictive
hate, and as he could not punish them in any other
1 Canz. 3, xx, 88-9. ' "Par." xvi, 115-7.
LIFE OF DANTE 23
way, gloated over their misfortunes in this world and
their imagined tortures in the next.
Dante's active career was now, to all intents and
purposes, closed. For a time he co-operated with his
fellow. Bianchi and the Ghibellines, but ultimately
conceived a disgust for both. In the " Paradise " l he
pillories a certain Lapo Salterello. Benvenuto says of
this person that he was "a litigious and loquacious man,
and very annoying to Dante during his exile." In the
" Inferno," ~ mention is made of one Camicion de
Pazzi, a murderer, who tells Dante that he is waiting
for Carlino to " exonerate " him, i.e. by his greater
weight of iniquity. Carlino de; Pazzi, for a sum of
money, surrendered to the Neri the fortress of Piano
in Valdarno, which he was defending, with the result
that many exiled Bianchi were captured and put to
death. If these comrades are specimens of those
with whom Dante was associated on the morrow of
his banishment, it is no wonder that he formed a party
by himself.
Dante's name appears in a document signed in the
abbey church of San Gaudenzo, at the foot of the
Alps, in which it was agreed to indemnify Ugolino di
Feliccione Ubaldini and his sons for any fosses sus-
tained through the operations against the Castello di
Montaccianico. The document is undated, but some
excellent authorities, including Del Lungo and Todes-
chini, assign it to the year 1302. There seems to
be little doubt that Dante's meeting with the other
fugitives at San Gaudenzo occurred on 8th June, 1302.
1 xv, 128. 2 xxxii, 68.
24 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Bruni's account is that the exiles assembled at
Gargonza, where they held many discussions, and
finally established themselves at Arezzo, where they
appointed Count Alessandro da Romena captain-
general and elected a council of twelve, of >vhom
Dante was one. They continued to hope against hope
until 2oth July, 1304, when they made a grand attack
upon Florence, in which they were joined by allies
from Arezzo, Bologna, and Pistoia. One of the gates
was seized and part of the Florentine territory con-
quered, but the expedition proved fruitless, and Dante,
in despair, betook himself to Verona, where he was
received very courteously by the della Scala. In
point of fact his withdrawal from the party took place
somewhat earlier, since Bartolommeo della Scala, the
"great Lombard" of the "Paradiso," died on yth
March, 1304. According to Bruni, whilst Dante was
at Verona, he humbled himself to write frequent letters
to members of the victorious party at Florence with a
view to his recall. Other letters were addressed to
the Florentine people, and among the rest a long
epistle beginning Papule mee, quid tibi fed?
From Verona Dante may have proceeded to Bologna,
as Villani records that he did at some time during his
exile in 1305 ? for the purpose of study; and there
he may have met Messer Fabbro, who receives honour-
able mention in the " Purgatorio." * In 1306 Dante
was almost certainly at Padua, and in the October of
that year he was in the Lunigiana, where he was em-
ployed by the Marchesi Malaspina to conclude a treaty
1 xiv, ioo.
LIFE OF DANTE 25
with the^ Bishop of Luni. Dante's visit to Guido Sal-
vatico in the Casentino, of which Boccaccio speaks,
appears to have occurred in 1307. It may be noted
that Manentessa, the wife of that nobleman, who
seconded her husband's hospitality to the wandering
poet, was a daughter of Buonconte of Montefeltro. 1
Whilst there, he is supposed to have written the letter
to Moroello Malaspina, together with the accompany-
ing poem, in which he owns to a passion for an Alpine
beauty, who, according to the Anonimo Fiorentino,
was of Pratovecchio.
There is reason to think that in 1308 Dante was at
Forli, acting as secretary to Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi.
Flavio Biondo, the historian of the place, affirms that
letters dictated by Dante were still to be seen in his
time. (Flavio died in 1463.) One Messer Marchese,
a tippler of Forli, is mentioned in a passage of the
" Purgatorio," ' that possesses biographical value ; and
there are other references to the neighbourhood
notably in the sixteenth canto of the " Inferno," where
Dante paints a vivid picture of a waterfall.
Both Villani and Boccaccio assert that Dante
travelled to Paris, and the latter adds that he triumph-
antly disputed against the ablest scholars in the theo-
logical school of the university. Some latter-day critics
of unquestioned eminence have been inclined to scout
this account of a visit to France, believing it to be a
legend based on Dante's theological knowledge, which
he might easily have acquired elsewhere. In so far as
the story depends on the allusion to Sigier and the
1 "Purg." v. 2 xxiv, 31.
26 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Rue du Fouarre in the tenth Canto of the " Paradise,"
it may be frankly admitted that the evidence is worth
little or nothing. The Rue du Fouarre (Street of the
Straw) was the Quartier Latin of the Middle Ages,
and as for Sigier (or Siger, as the name should be
spelled), Dante might have heard enough of that un-
lucky champion of freedom without going beyond the
limits of the peninsula. The tradition that Dante
studied at Oxford, to which Gladstone, Plumptre, and
other English enthusiasts have clung, is utterly im-
probable, but Villani's testimony regarding the poet's
residence in Paris is not to be lightly laid aside. If
this chapter in his life be real, it must be allotted to
the year 1309.
In the twenty-fourth Canto of the " Purgatorio,"
Dante refers to a stay at Lucca, and a scandal that
arose out of a friendship between himself and a young
lady of the place. Gaspary suggests that this occurred
between 1307 and 1310, but in those days Lucca was
an ally of Florence. From June, 1314, to April, 1316,
Uguccione della Faggiuola was tyrant of the town,
and then Dante would have been safer. Dante's son,
Pietro, adopted the view that the affair in question
was a guilty liaison? but Buti, a fourteenth-century
commentator, states that " he formed an attachment
to a gentle lady called Madonna Gentucca, of the
family of Rossimpelo, on account of her great virtue
and modesty, and not with any other love."
In 1310, the Emperor Henry VII arrived in Italy,
and Dante trusted that the two objects on which he
1 SeeScheffer-Boichorst/'AusDanle's Verbannung,"pp. 216-8.
LIFE OF DANTE 27
had set his heart the restoration of Imperial ascend-
ancy and his own return to Florence were in a fair
way of fulfilment. If the epistle to the Emperor is
genuine, the poet paid his court to the monarch, and
sought to promote the success of the expedition by
advising him to raise the siege of Brescia. Henry
entered Rome, where he was crowned by the Papal
legates, and he then proceeded to invest Florence.
Dante's heart must have beat high at the news, but
poet and emperor were both doomed to disappoint-
ment. Florence was not captured. Worse was to
follow. Henry was on the march to attack King
Robert of Naples, when, on 23rd August, 1313, he
suddenly expired at Buonconvento. It was expected
that Frederick of Aragon would assume the leader-
ship of the Ghibelline cause, but that prince retired to
Sicily, and refused to intervene in Italian affairs.
Accordingly, Dante has never a good word to say of
him. Very different is his attitude towards Can Grande
della Scala, who was elected captain of the Ghibelline
league in 1318, and from whom the poet anticipated
great indeed, the greatest things.
During the last years of his life Dante fixed his
headquarters at the court of Guido Novello da Polenta
at Ravenna. Thither, if his letter to that nobleman is
authentic, he must have repaired as early as 1313, but
this circumstance does not preclude one or several
visits to Can Grande at Verona, and the anecdotes
recorded by Petrarch, and quoted by Balbo in his Life
of Dante, 1 almost necessitate this conclusion.
1 Mrs. Bunbury's tr. ii, 207.
28 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
7. DEATH AND BURIAL
Guido Novello, a nephew of Francesca da Rimini,
the fair sinner compassionated by Dante in the
" Inferno," ' employed him as an ambassador to Venice,
for the purpose of staving off the war with which he
was threatened by that republic and Forli. On his way
back, Dante was seized by mortal sickness, and died
at Ravenna on the night of i3th September, 1321.
He was buried with great honour at the Church of
St. Peter (now the Chiesa di San Francesco), and it
was intended by Guido Novello to erect a sumptuous
tomb to his memory. Soon afterwards, however,
Dante's patron and admirer was driven from Ravenna,
and thus the project was defeated, but in 1483, Bern-
ardo Bembo, father of the celebrated cardinal, gave
effect to the design by commissioning a superb
monument.
Dante's life is a torso in all outer respects broken
and incomplete, but throughout he kept his eyes
steadily fixed on the prize of poetical immortality,
symbolized, perhaps, by the constant stars, with the
mention of which each cantica of the "Commedia"
closes. Accomplished amidst wretchedness, weariness,
exile, perpetual disappointment, and ill-relished depend-
ence, the Sacred Poem is a perfect and inspiring ex-
ample of moral courage and intellectual pains. Sic
itur ad astra.
1 "Inf."v.
CHAPTER II
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES
i. GENERAL
IN the preceding chapter reference has been made
to Dante's letters always in a cautious and hesi-
tating tone, such as befits the general uncertainty of
the subject. These letters relate to the historical
aspects of Dante's career, and therefore with the facts
or probabilities fresh in our minds, we may well pro-
ceed to consider the epistles and eclogues before be-
stowing attention on those compositions which are
unquestionably genuine, and on which his great reputa-
tion so securely depends.
As Mr. Gardner observes, the point of departure
for any such study is Villani's rubric:
" Amongst others he wrote three noble epistles. One
he sent to the Florentine government, complaining of
his unmerited exile. Another to the Emperor Henry,
when he was at the siege of Brescia, chiding him for
his delay and almost prophesying. The third to the
cardinals of Italy, when there was the vacancy after
the death of Pope Clement, in order that they might
agree in choosing an Italian pope. All in Latin with
lofty diction and with excellent sentences and author-
29
3 o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
ities, which were much commended by the wise and
understanding." l
Next we have Dante's statement in " Vita Nuova " 2
that, after the death of his lady, he wrote to the
princes of the country regarding its state, taking for
commencement the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
Quomodo sedet sola civitas! It is worthy of remark that
the letter addressed to the cardinals of Italy in 1314,
supposing the extant epistle to be genuine, begins
with those words. The latter is, of course, not to be
confounded with that mentioned in the " Vita Nuova,"
which would have been composed many years pre-
viously. Another matter for observation is that the
second and third books of the " De Monarchia,"
which may be described as an epistle on a grand
scale, are introduced with quotations from the Old
Testament, proving that Dante had a predilection for
this ecclesiastical sort of preface. It may be added
that the practice, on the part of distinguished writers,
of addressing governments and communities, may be
traced, as far as Italy is concerned, to the example of
Guittone of Arezzo, who wrote more than one epistle
to the Florentines, the most interesting being the
fourteenth letter, which refers to the battle of Monte-
aperto.
Returning to Dante, Cecco d'Ascoli, an eccentric
contemporary, claims to have received a letter from
him when the poet was at Ravenna;' 1 and Boccaccio
asserts that Dante wrote many letters in prose, a
number of which were still to be seen. Bruni speaks
1 >x, 136. - S xxxi. : ' "Acerba,"ii, 12.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 31
of several letters, one of which must have corre-
sponded, with respect to its tenor, to Epistle VI in
the " Oxford Dante." In another the poet is said to
have stated his unwillingness to take part in the siege
of Florence. Bruni not only cites Dante's letters, but
describes his handwriting, which, he informs us, was
thin, long, and very correct, as he could testify from
personal inspection. If the biographer reproduces the
ipsissima verba of the letters from which he culls, some
of them must have been in Italian. It is more likely,
however, that he translated from Latin originals, Dante
not having emancipated himself from the trammels of
mediaeval custom in this particular. A letter to Guido
da Polenta is in Italian, but it is almost universally
rejected as a clumsy forgery, and is not to be found in
the Oxford edition of Dante's works. Still, it must not
be forgotten that Dante was one of the greatest of
innovators in the use of the vernacular, differing in
that respect from Petrarch, who was also a voluminous
letter-writer.
The " Oxford Dante " contains ten letters, all of
which are at least discussible. The general attitude
towards the Dantesque letters is questioning, and the
views that have been put forward represent various
degrees of scepticism. Imbriani ' will not allow that
any of them are genuine, and Scartazzini, 2 though he
would fain grant that three or four are what they pro-
fess, arrives at the reluctant conclusion that not one
of them is beyond reasonable doubt. With others it
is a matter of picking and choosing, letters being pro-
1 " Propugn." xiii, 2", 229-33. '" " Dantologia," p. 341.
32 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
nounced genuine or spurious in accordance with
purely subjective canons of criticism. Mr. Edmund G.
Gardner has devoted a valuable essay to the topic
of Dante's letters, and in the face of the desolating
scepticism which leaves hardly one stone upon another,
his verdict possesses uncommon interest. He decides
that " setting aside the letters to Cino da Pistoia and
to Moroello Malaspina, which are usually rejected
as spurious . . . the probability in favour of the
genuineness of the Epistles to the Princes and People,
to the Florentines, to the Emperor, and to the Italian
Cardinals, together with the two Eclogues, is so strong
as almost to amount to certitude; and the arguments
against the Letter to the Florentine friend, and the
Epistle to Can Grande seem to me decidedly the
reverse of conclusive." 1 He concedes the possibility
that the Epistles to the Emperor and to the Cardinals
are fourteenth-century forgeries based on Villani's
statement and concocted for political purposes, but in
disproof of this suggestion, he appeals to the internal
evidence of the letters, which, if they are spurious,
reveal a striking acquaintance with Dante's modes of
thought, when tested by corresponding passages in
the " Commedia." The question is, therefore, whether
these are not undesigned coincidences due to common
authorship. On this point it need only be observed
that the rigid application of this principle might carry
Mr. Gardner farther than he might be willing to go, as
it is easy to indicate similarities of language and senti-
ment between letters which he accounts genuine, and
1 Dante's "Ten Heavens," p. 296.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 33
those that he excludes. Close investigation will bring
to light links of connection, in the shape of words and
phrases, which might set before us the choice of ac-
cepting or rejecting practically the whole collection.
As regards the letter to Moroello Malaspina, which is
especially an object of suspicion, it contains expres-
sions parallel to some contained in Canzone XI.
Until late in the eighteenth century only one letter
of Dante was known to exist that to Can Grande (X).
Translations of those to the Princes and People of
Italy and the Emperor considered to be the work of
Marsilio Ficino were available also, and that was all.
The first addition to this scanty store was made by
Dionisi, who published Epistle IX. In 1827 Witte
printed the original of the letter to the Emperor (VII),
the letter to the Italian Cardinals (VIII), and that to
Cino of Pistoia (IV). Continuing his researches, he
discovered among the MSS. presented to Gregory XV
by Maximilian of Bavaria in 1622 a number of other
letters attributed to Dante, including I, II, III, V, and
VI in the "Oxford Dante." There were three more
letters written in the name of the Countess G. of
Battifolle to the Empress Margaret of Brabant, wife
of Henry VII, which Witte l judged from internal
evidence to have been Dante's compositions, but this
opinion has received little support from the generality
of scholars. We will now proceed to consider the ten
epistles of our text in order which, as far as can be
ascertained, is the chronological order.
1 "Essays on Dante," Lawrence and Wicksteed's tr.,
p. 221.
D
34 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
2. EPISTLES I AND II
Epistles I and II date from that comparatively early
period of Dante's exile, when, according to Bruni,
Bianchi and Ghibellines ranged themselves under the
command of Count Alessandro da Romena, and
elected a council of twelve for managing the affairs of
the party, Dante being one. It has been suspected
that Alessandro and the council are both mythical,
since neither Villani nor any other contemporary
seems to have known anything of them. They are
named, however, in the inscription of Epistle I, which,
if it is not a downright forgery, affords valuable con-
firmation of Bruni's account. It will be observed that
from the first word to the last there is nothing to
indicate that Dante was concerned in the production,
and Del Lungo maintains that it was written after the
attempt of the exiles to storm Florence, when Dante
had severed his connection with the party. The same
writer affirms his belief that the document is genuine
in the sense that it was drawn up at the time in
other words, that it is the serious official communica-
tion that it purports to be; and few persons, on a
careful perusal of its contents, will find reason for
denying this character to it.
Although it is considered most improbable that
Dante had anything to do with its production, a brief
note on the circumstances in which it was composed
will not be out of place. Early in 1304 Cardinal
Nicholas of Ostia was despatched by the new pope,
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 35
Benedict IX, on a mission of peace to Tuscany, the
Maremma, and Romagna. Forged letters created the
impression that he unduly favoured the Bianchi; and
on 8th May, when he attempted to enter Florence for
the second time, admission was refused. This letter
appears to have been written some time in March
from the valley of the Upper Arno, and is couched in
a strain of confident anticipation and reverent submis-
sion, very different from what we should have expected
in view of the hostile relations between the leaders of
the Bianchi and the Papacy before the expulsion of
the former from Florence, and the external fortunes
of the party subsequently. The letter renders it evident
that the Cardinal, in his desire to placate the Bianchi,
had conceded too much. A certain Friar B. had been
sent to the exiles with a promise of restoring them to
their civic rights and giving back the laws and institu-
tions to which they were attached. In return, the
author or authors of the epistle express warm gratitude
and filial obedience to the Cardinal, who, however,
had undertaken more than he was able to perform.
Epistle II is interesting for various reasons. As in
the case of Epistle I, we are not obliged to regard the
letter as either Dante's or a later forgery. It may be
a genuine epistle written by somebody else. One
stumbling-block in the way of believing that Dante
was the author, is the startling contrast between the
tone of this letter and the allusion to the House of
Romena in the thirtieth canto of the " Inferno." This
argument, however, is not conclusive, since we find
another Alexander of more historical importance,
36 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
praised for his liberality in the "Convivio," ' and yet
assigned to the circle of Hell in which tyrants expiate
their inhumanity. 2 Moreover, Dante does not spare
his best friends, to whom he acknowledges his indebt-
edness.
But there is a suspicion that Alessandro da Romena,
captain of the Bianchi, is a figment. The passage in
the " Inferno," 3 which is supported by historical evid-
ence, proves that there was an Alessandro, who,
according to Passerini and Troya, was the son or
brother of Guido Pace, 4 but the latter authority does
not identify him with the Alessandro who is said to
have commanded the exiles, and of whom, in that
case, mention occurs only in Bruni's " Life of Dante,"
and in this letter. If there were two of the name then
living, apart from the future Bishop of Urbino, who
would have been a boy, the general of the Bianchi
was nephew of the other. Passerini guesses that the
Alessandro, whom he makes the eldest son of Guido
Pace, and Troya represents as his brother, died in
1305, and Troya's later opinion was that Alessandro,
the third son of Guido Pace, died in that year. Al-
together it is a fine tangle, which can only be under-
stood by means of genealogical tables, but in this, at
any rate, we have a point of agreement that an Ales-
sandro da Romena died in 1305, if, that is to say, the
views of the rival heralds are worth anything at all.
Provisionally, then, we may accept 1305 as the date
of the present letter.
1 iv, II. 2 "Inf." xii, 107. 3 xxx, 77.
4 Witte, op. at. p. 182.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 37
As to whether the epistle is Dante's, there is not
much to show, but, if we accept it as a genuine letter
of the period, it is quite probable that he wrote it.
One cannot but be struck with the expression exul
immeritus, which figures in the inscriptions of Epistles
V, VI, and VII, and seems to have been adopted by
Dante as a standing description. Again, the plea of
poverty which he advances in the conclusion as an
excuse for not attending the funeral of his illustrious
comrade, will naturally remind us of the famous pass-
age in the " Convivio," * in which he deplores his
miserable lot. The grand manner is also rather in-
dicative of Dantesque origin.
3. EPISTLE III
Epistle III is remarkable both for its contents and
the person to whom it is addressed. The topic with
which it deals is a sudden and violent attack of love
which has constrained the writer to break his good
resolution not again to meddle with frivolous themes,
but to make study his constant occupation. Accom-
panying the letter was a copy of a poem which has
been identified with Canzone XI, in the fifth stanza
of which the lightnings, if not the thunders, of passion
are similarly recorded. It has been considered ex-
traordinary that Dante should have confided these
sentiments to Moroello Malaspina, who had been
commander of the Neri army that inflicted a crushing
38 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
defeat on the Bianchi at Serravalle in 1302^ and,
having conquered Pistoia for Florence and Lucca,
had governed it as Capitano del Popolo. On the
other hand, it must be remembered that, assuming
this letter to have been written in 1307, some years
had elapsed since Dante had renounced all connec-
tion with the Bianchi as a party, and he had been in-
timately associated with members of the Malaspina
family. Dante praises Alagia, Moroello's wife, in the
nineteenth canto of the " Purgatorio " ; 2 and in the
same cantica he does not scruple to refer to an equi-
vocal friendship with a lady of Lucca. The simile, in
which he likens Love to an exile returning to his own
country, with all the severity which usually marked
coups d'etat in the city-republics, is most natural in
the circumstances, and the phrase pitlsus a patria has
already occurred in Epistle II. It may also be noted
that the expression praesentis oratiunculae seriem re-
sembles vestrantm Htterarum seriem in Epistle I,
pointing to community of origin or imitation.
4. EPISTLE IV
Epistle IV, addressed to Cino of Pistoia, is a fitting
sequel to the foregoing, treating as it does of the
philosophy of love. In the previous letter Dante (if
Dante was the author) owns to a new attachment ;
here the point on which Cino is supposed to have
consulted him is whether, and in what way, the soul
can be transformed from one passion to another.
1 " Inf." xxiv, 148. 2 11. 42-44.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 39
Dante decides that, while a passion may die, the
faculty of desire, which is the seat of love, is reserved
for further activity. He specifies Ovid's " De Rerum
Transformatione," and Seneca's " Remedia Amoris," l
as authoritative works, which his correspondent will
do well to peruse; and he seems to have appended a
versified discourse of his own, conjectured to be either
Sonnet XXXVI of the " Oxford Dante," or Canzone I
of the "Convivio." It should be pointed out that
Sonnet XXXIV also, in which Dante taxes Cino, in
reply to a sonnet received from him, with a dubious
facility in transferring his affections, though contra-
dictory in tone, belongs to the same cycle of composi-
tions in respect of its subject.
If we could be sure that the first four letters are
genuine, they might be grouped as a single family,
dating from the period between Dante's banishment
and the advent of the Emperor Henry, and linked each
to each by verbal affinities or identity of plan, such as
the subjoining of a poem. The hyperbolical note dis-
covered in the preceding epistles reappears in the
fourth, the commencement of which is positively
volcanic.
5. LETTER OF FRATE ILARIO
Before proceeding to discuss the remainder of the
epistles, it will be expedient to touch upon an effusion
which is not found in the " Oxford Dante." Obviously,
for it neither is nor purports to be a composition of
1 Apocryphal; Dante cites it, "Conv."iii, 8; " De Mon."
ii, 8.
40 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the poet, though it is associated with his real or pre-
tended letters in the Laurentian codex, an autograph
of Boccaccio's. We allude to the famous letter of
Frate Ilario. Scartazzini ridicules its pretensions, and,
regarding it as so much fooling, takes occasion to
make an excellent pun by dubbing it &preziosa ilarita. 1
Scheffer-Boichorst 2 was at one time strongly inclined
to accept it as genuine; and very few readers will feel
anything but regret at the sacrifice of the dramatic
incident it relates as having occurred in the Convent
of Santa Croce del Corvo in the Lunigiana. " Hither
he came, passing through the diocese of Luni, moved
either by the religion of the place or by some other
feeling. And seeing him, as yet unknown to me and
to all my brethren, I questioned him of his wishings
and seekings there. He moved not, but stood silently
contemplating the columns and arches of the cloister.
And again I asked him what he wished, and whom he
sought. Then slowly turning his head and looking at
the friars and at me, he answered, ' Peace ! ' "
Unfortunately, the genuineness of an Epistle is not
to be determined by the mere desire that it may be
authentic. To this point we shall have to recur in a
later section. 3 Here, however, it may be recalled that
Dante was undoubtedly in the Lunigiana in 1306, to
which year Scheffer-Boichorst assigned the letter. It
is addressed to Uguccione della Faggiuola, and con-
veys the information that Dante proposed to dedicate
1 " Dantologia," p. 346.
2 Aus Dante's Verb. pp. 151 el se<j.
3 Book II, Pt. II, Ch. i.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 41
the first part of the "Commedia" to that eminent
man, and the succeeding portions to Moroello Mala-
spina and Frederick of Sicily respectively. The men-
tion of Moroello Malaspina brings the letter into
relation with Epistle III, but it cannot have been
written so early as 1306, as it refers to the death of
Corso Donati, which had not then taken place.
6. EPISTLE V
We now come to what may be termed, relatively to
the letters already dealt with, the first of the canonical
Epistles that to the Princes and People of Italy.
Epistle V presents some notable variations from the
style of its predecessors, more particularly in the lavish
use of quotations from Scripture, and illustrates what
Villani meant by the expression quasi prof etizzando.
The letter has all the ring of true and profound con-
viction, and is precisely the sort of message that one
can imagine the " blameless exile " penning and send-
ing forth to his countrymen on the eve of the visitation
of the Emperor Henry, which he fondly hoped would
inaugurate a new and golden age both for himself and
those of his compatriots who followed the path of
duty. Throughout the letter he appeals to the re-
ligious sense of Italians, and nothing could be more
impressive and, one may say, inspired, than the divine
elation that informs the opening sentences : " ' Be-
hold, now is the accepted time,' wherein arise signs
of consolation and of peace. For a new day shineth,
displaying a dawn which already dissipates the shades
42 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
of long-continued calamity. Already the Eastern
breezes thicken; the sky reddens and comforts with
caressing calm the forebodings of the nations. And
we shall see our looked-for joy we who have long
spent the night in the wilderness, inasmuch as there
shall rise up the pacific Titan, and Justice, dulled
even as the heliotrope without the sun, shall again
flourish, what time he shall have brandished his glory.
In the light of his rays all they that hunger and thirst
shall be satisfied, and they that love iniquity shall be
confounded. For the mighty Lion of the Tribe of
Judah has erected his merciful ears, and, pitying the
lamentation of universal captivity, has raised up another
Moses, who shall deliver his people from the burdens
of the Egyptians and lead them to a land flowing with
milk and honey.
" Rejoice, Italy, thou which art now to be pitied
even of the Saracens, but presently will appear every-
where enviable, seeing that thy spouse, the solace of
the world and the glory of thy people, Henry most
clement, Divus Augustus and Caesar, hastens to thy
nuptials. Dry thy tears and wipe out the tokens of thy
mourning, fairest, for he is at hand that shall set thee
free from the prison of the ungodly, who, smiting them
that have ill-will, shall destroy them with the edge of
the sword, and let out his vineyard to others, who
shall render the fruits of righteousness in the time of
harvest."
No one who has the least acquaintance with Holy
Scripture can fail to be struck with the repeated echoes
of consecrated phrases translated to a political con-
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 43
text. This characteristic is carried to such an extreme
as to fashion the pamphlet into a homily on the Divine
Right of Emperors. Henry's Italian subjects are de-
picted as children in need of wholesome discipline,
and while Dante lays stress on the lovingkindness of
the Sublime Eagle, he holds out small hope for such
as resist and kick against the pricks. They are to be
pursued even unto Thessaly the Thessaly of final
destruction. This is, of course, an allusion to the
battle of Pharsalia. When Dante suspends for a
moment the battery of Biblical reminiscences, it is
that he may have recourse to the armoury of Greek
and Latin history. The argumentative portion of the
letter is based on the assertion of a bifurcation of
authority as between Peter and Caesar and the assump-
tion that Henry of Luxemburg has inherited all the
rights and privileges of the ancient Roman Emperors.
Dante adduces as a proof the peace in which the
whole world had been lapped for the past twelve
years. Properly to appreciate the force of this reason-
ing, one must call to mind the use of a similar
phenomenon at the time of the birth of Christ in his
" De Monarchia," in which his views of the relations
between Church and State are more fully elaborated.
This epistle was apparently written before the treatise
since the conclusion of the letter tacitly acquiesces in
the notion, combated in the " De Monarchia," l that
the Pope is to the Emperor as is the Sun to the Moon.
" This is he whom Peter, the Vicar of God, bids us
honour, whom Clement, now Peter's successor, lightens
1 iii. 4.
44 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
with the light of Apostolic benediction, that where the
spiritual ray suffices not, there the brightness of the
lesser luminary may give light."
Lastly, it may be worth while to direct attention to
the passage of the letter in which the word "helio-
trope " occurs. The term " Titan," as applied to the
sun, is easily explicable, being in accordance with
classical usage, although the term would be more
strictly applied to Hyperion, the father of Helios or
Sol. Most people, however, would never suspect in
reading the passage that the term " heliotrope " meant
anything but the plant. It is possible that it signifies
the winter's solstice, and Mr. Latham so renders it.
("Titan shall arise pacific, and justice, which had
languished without sunshine at the end of the winter's
solstice, shall grow green once more, when first he
darts forth his splendour.") Dr. Paget Toynbee sug-
gests a third, and highly interesting interpretation
" that Dante is here referring to one of the well-known
(legendary) properties of the precious stone called
heliotropium, which, when placed in water, had the
power of altering or dimming the sun." 1 On the
whole, it is most likely that Dante alludes to the
plant, since in Sonnet XXXIX he refers to the story
of Clytie who was transformed by Apollo into a
vegetable, not a mineral, heliotrope. Uguccione da
Pisa, whose work " De Derivationibus Verborum " is
cited in the fourth book of the "Convivio," 2 defines
heliotropium as quaedam herba, and speaks of its
property of turning to the sun.
1 "Studies and Researches," 267-9. " C. 6.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 4 5
This letter must have been written after the Em-
peror's first coronation, and before he entered Italy on
roth October, 1310.
7. EPISTLE VI
Epistle VI is a vehement reproof of " the most
wicked Florentines within." Unlike the remainder of
the letters, this and the following epistle are dated,
and dated in such a way as shows that Dante had
considerable confidence in the future, since he makes
an epoch of what he terms " the most auspicious
march of the Emperor Henry to Italy." The post-
script of Epistle VI conveys that it was written on the
borders of Tuscany, near the sources of the Arno,
3ist March, 1311. The letter was known to Bruni,
who manifestly refers to it in the passage:
"Now while he was thus hoping for a return by
way of pardon, the election of Henry of Luxemburg
as Emperor took place; and first his election and then
his expedition threw all Italy into a fever of expecta-
tion. Whereupon Dante could not hold his purpose
of awaiting grace, but, exalting himself with disdainful
mind, began to revile them who were in possession of
the city, calling them infamous and evil, and threaten-
ing them with the punishment that they deserved at
the hands of the Emperor, from which, he said, it was
evident they could not escape."
The letter opens with a restatement of principles.
The Roman Empire is of divine appointment, the
purpose being to ensure general tranquillity and
46 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
civilization. Italy, tossed by wind and waves, is a
wretched example of anarchy, due to the want of a
lawful ruler. This is particularly the case with the
Florentines, who have risen in mad rebellion against
the Roman prince, the king of the world, God's min-
ister. Accordingly, Dante launches the most terrible
denunciations against them. After ridiculing the
power of their walls to keep Henry at bay a judge-
ment falsified by the event he draws a lurid picture
of coming doom. They will see their luxurious abodes
falling under the strokes of the battering-ram, or con-
sumed with fire. The famished populace will clamour
wildly. The churches, thronged day after day with a
crowd of matrons, will be the prey of the spoiler,
while wondering innocents will expiate the misdeeds
of their fathers. Dante will not suffer the criminals to
derive comfort from the pages of history. They are
not to expect the good fortune that befell the men of
Parma, who surprised Vittoria, the head-quarters of
Frederick II; rather let them call to mind the pun-
ishment meted out by an earlier Frederick, i.e., Bar-
barossa to Milan and Spoleto. Their fate will re-
semble that of heroic Saguntum, with the important
difference that the sufferings endured by that glorious
place were borne for the cause of liberty, while the
disasters awaiting Florence will be incurred in shame-
ful wise for the sake of slavery. The passage ' in
which Dante insists that the Florentines are actually
in a state of bondage and that true freedom can only
be enjoyed under the Empire should be compared
'5-
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 47
with the " De Monarchia," in which he assigns reasons
for this apparent paradox. The charge that the citi-
zens, relying on prescriptive right, have refused the
duty of submission and risen to the madness of re-
bellion seems specifically to refer to the offer of im-
perial mediation in the affair of Arezzo, July, I3IO. 1
Towards the close of Epistle VI Dante calls the
German prince triumphator, and the compliment is
repeated in the inscription of Epistle VII, notwith-
standing that in this letter impatience is expressed at
the slowness of the military operations. At the date
of its composition i4th April, 1311 Dante was still
in the same place, near the source of the Arno, and
it has been conjectured that he was residing at the
court of Guido Salvatico (second cousin of Alessandro
da Romena), whose wife has been identified with the
Countess G. of Battifolle, the correspondent of the
Empress Margaret. The latest of the three letters
written in her name is dated from Poppi in the upper
valley of the Arno, i8th May, 1311.
8. EPISTLE VII
Epistle VII is addressed to the Emperor, and over-
flows with rapturous loyalty, which barely stops short
of elevating the monarch to the level of Christ. The
preceding letter claims that the words of Isaiah,
" Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sor-
rows," have a secondary reference to Henry, who had
undertaken an arduous task for the benefit of Italy.
1 Villani, viii, 120.
48 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Epistle VII goes a step farther, bursting out into
such language as this: "I beheld thy most benign
countenance and heard thy most merciful voice, when
my hands handled thy feet and my lips paid that
which was due. Then my spirit exulted in thee, and
silently I said to myself: 'Behold the Lamb of God;
behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.' "
As has been intimated, Dante is not quite satisfied
with the new redeemer, who seems lax in achieving
the objects of the expedition. Thus he had been
driven to exclaim with John the Baptist: "Art thou
he that should come, or do we look for another?" In
order to stimulate the prince to increased activity, he
quotes with evident approval Curio's speech to Caesar
in Lucan's " Pharsalia," although we meet with the
tribune in the twenty-eighth canto of the " Inferno," J
punished as a sedition-monger.
how bewildered unto me appeared,
With tongue asunder in his windpipe slit,
Curio, who in speaking was so bold !
Dante, more audacious still, urges the Emperor to
destroy Florence root and branch. The Lord has
anointed him that he may smite Amalek and kill
Agag. Like Hercules, he has to discover a way of
slaying this Hydra. In vituperating Florence, Dante
exhausts his magazine of abuse. She is successively a
stinking vixen, a viper, a sick flock, a Myrrha, an
Amata. Away with her! In a memorable passage of
the " Inferno " 2 the Ghibelline Farinata is praised, by
1 H. 100-2. - x , 73-93.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 49
implication, for having alone withstood a similar pro-
posal. These inconsistencies do not suffice to upset
the authenticity of the letter, which is one of those
most generally accepted. " Circumstances alter cases,"
and Dante's point of view is naturally affected by his
immediate aims and the feelings of the moment.
It will be recollected that Villani particularly refers
to three letters of Dante's, one of them being an
epistle to the Emperor, " reproving him for his delay,"
i.e. in besieging Brescia, the angustissima mundi area
of 4. When Henry advanced southwards, Moroello
Malaspina was sent as Imperial Vicar to Brescia,
whence it is evident that that nobleman's opinions
had undergone a complete change since the time he
led the forces of the Florentine Neri to the victory of
Serravalle. For this reason Witte is inclined to assign
Epistle III to the year 1309 or 1310.
Henry, as we have seen, met his end when he was
proceeding to attack King Robert of Naples, and
some have imagined that Robert was the person or
power described in Epistle VII J as Goliath. There is
little doubt, however, that a greater than he is in-
tended namely, Philip le Bel, who is also the giant
of the thirty-second canto of the " Purgatorio," 2 in
which the relations between France and the Papacy
are set forth under the veil of allegory. In 1304 a
gross outrage had been perpetrated on the dignity of
Rome and Italy by the removal of the Apostolic see
to Avignon after the election of Clement V, a Gascon,
to the pontificate.
1 8. 2 11. 142-60.
5 o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
9. EPISTLE VIII
Epistle VIII was addressed to the Italian cardinals
on the death of Pope Clement in 1314, and its pur-
pose was to impress upon them their duty at that
crisis of ecclesiastical history. The epistle is a natural
sequel to its immediate predecessor. The noble Henry
has failed in his mission, he has gone the way of all
flesh; and Dante now turns his attention to the car-
dinals as the primi pili, or chief centurions of the
Church Militant, and thus best able to remedy the
scandals of the existing situation. He endeavours to
stir up their patriotic resentment against the conduct
of the greedy Gascons in seeking to usurp the glory
of the Latins, and to induce them to vote for an
Italian successor to the deceased pontiff. In point of
fact, the next pope was to be John of Cahors. Dante's
detestation of Clement is revealed in his allusion to
the " cheating Gascon " (" Par." xvii, 82), and in the
speech of Peter, in which the apostle condemns Gas-
cons and Caorsines alike.
To drink our blood the Caorsines and Gascons
Are making ready. O thou good beginning
Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall ! '
In reading Epistle VIII one cannot fail to notice
the phrase, viduam etdesertam 3 a reminiscence of the
description of Florence after the death of Beatrice, in
the " Vita Nuova " (quasi vedova, dispogliata di ogni
dignitade)? Obviously, the source of the phrase is the
1 " Par." xxvii, 63-6. 2 2. 3 xxxi.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 51
text with which the epistle opens, quoted also in the
"Vita Nuova" (loc. n't.) as the commencement of a
letter addressed to the princes of the country. It is
borrowed from the prophet Jeremiah (Lam. i, i), and
Mr. Gardner considers that " there is a distinct analogy
between the letter from Dante to the Cardinals at
Carpentras, and the letter which Jeremiah sent from
Jerusalem to the captives in Babylon; in spite of the
strongly contrasted contents and the different objects
the two writers had in view."
Epistle VIII is less exposed to the assaults of criti-
cism than some of the others at any rate, fewer and
less determined assaults are made upon it. But one
ought, we suppose, to recognize the possibility that an
ingenious forger, not perhaps with any malign intention,
but as a literary feat, constructed the epistle out of
hints supplied by Dante's unquestioned compositions.
This attitude of mind is hard to disarm, for the very
coincidences of thought and style, with which the
genuineness of the epistle might be deemed estab-
lished, will appear to it so many evidences of imitation.
If, therefore, we encounter a deviation a slight de-
viation from an apparent model, it may occur even
to the sceptic that the difference is far more likely to
be due to Dante himself than to a mere imitator, who
would most probably have saved himself the trouble
of inventing new analogies. In the nineteenth canto
of the " Inferno," ' we find the following prediction
of the alliance between Philip le Bel and Pope
Clement:
1 11. 83-7.
5 2 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
For after him shall come of fouler deed
From tow'rds the west a Pastor without law,
Such as befits to cover him and me.
New Jason will he be, of whom we read
In Maccabees ; and, as his king was pliant,
So he who governs France shall be to this one.
The reference is to 2 Maccabees iv, and the proto-
types of Pope and King are Jason and Antiochus.
Epistle VIII, on the other hand, compares them with
Alcimus and Demetrius. 1
The letter is quite worthy of Dante, since it is
marked by a burning eloquence and complete mastery
of Latin, as it was then written. Conceiving himself
challenged for touching the Ark, he announces him-
self as one of the least of the sheep of Christ's fold.
He owes nothing to riches. " By the grace of God I
am what I am, and ' the zeal of His house hath eaten
me up.'" In other words, he ranks himself with the
prophets of old, who, standing apart from the regular
priesthood, delivered the Lord's message to their
countrymen with rhythmic force and persuasive fer-
vour, not unmixed with sharp reproof and lashing in-
vective. With pungent sarcasm Dante excepts from
his general censure of the clergy, as children of the
daughters of the horse-leech, the Bishop of Luni.
Gherardino Malaspina, who was not only Bishop, but
Count of Luni, had been placed by Henry VII under
the ban of the Empire, and had joined himself to
" the most wicked Florentines within." Dante has
more hope of Cardinal Napoleone Orsini, whom he
1 i Mace. vii.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 53
addresses by name, and who was, in this matter, a
kindred spirit. This community of sentiment is proved
by a letter which Orsini wrote to the King of France,
deploring the prevalent corruption and expressing
contrition for having aided in the election of Pope
Clement, just then dead.
10. EPISTLE IX
Epistle IX is a private letter written by Dante to a
friend at Florence with reference to the conditions of
the former's repatriation. As his exile is stated to
have already lasted about three " lustres," or fifteen
years, the date of the epistle would be 1316. In the
course of that year the Florentine government granted
three amnesties to political offenders on 2nd June,
3rd September, and nth December. The terms on
which restoration was conceded comprised the pay-
ment of a fine (combined, apparently, in some instances,
with imprisonment) and afterwards an " oblation," or
presentation in the Church of St. John. The provision
of 2nd June, which is probably what is intended by
the words " newly-made ordinance," expressly excluded
those banished by Cante Gabrielli de' Canti, as Podesta,
between ist November, 1301, and ist July, 1302, and
any who had been condemned for barratry in the
exercise of public functions. It would seem, therefore,
that actually Dante could not have profited by the
indulgence, but it does not follow that this state of
the case had impressed itself on his mind, or that of
his friend. There had probably been some talk of
54 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
smuggling him back, with the connivance of the
authorities and the Podesta was now Count Guido
of Battifolle, his former host, according to some
provided that he would submit to the prescribed
penances.
Dante indignantly rejects the humiliating conditions
and speaks of oblation as a "brand." He has no thought
of sharing the infamy of " a certain Ciolo " meaning,
it would seem, Ciolo degli Abati, who had received an
amnesty in 1311.
Excellent critics, both German and Italian, impugn
the authenticity of the Epistle, but it forms part of
the Laurentian MS. and was transcribed by Boccaccio,
who, in his Life of Dante, mentions the refusal of
some such offer. Thus it may well be, as Mr. Gardner
maintains, " very obviously the basis of the great pass-
age" in the Life, in which the circumstance is re-
ferred to. As far as internal evidence is a clue, it
distinctly favours the genuineness of the letter. The
sense of dignity, the pride that conquers even passion-
ate love of country, is thoroughly in keeping with
Dante's character. If he was to return to Florence
and the Church of St. John, it must be as an honoured
poet, not as a penitent politician. The phrase in which
he protests that everywhere he will have sight of the
sun and stars is not only akin to the language in which
he bids farewell to each division of his trilogy, but
recalls the famous saying of his Piccarda, " everywhere
in heaven is Paradise." l Starvation would not have
compelled his submission, but he intimates that this
1 "Par. "Hi, 88-9.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 55
ultima ratio will not be applied to him " bread will
not fail."
D. G. Rossetti esteemed the composition so highly
that he has presented us with a poetical paraphrase
of it:
This Dante writ in answer thus,
Words such as these : " That clearly they
In Florence must not have to say
The man abode aloof from us
Nigh fifteen years, yet lastly skulk'd
Hither to candleshrift and mulct.
That he was one the Heavens forbid
To traffic in God's justice sold
By market-weight of earthly gold,
Or to bow down over the lid
Of steaming censers, and so be
Made clean of manhood's obloquy.
That since no gate led, by God's will,
To Florence, but the one whereat
The priests and money-changers sat,
He still would wander, for that still,
Even through the body's prison-bars,
His soul possessed the sun and stars."
ii. EPISTLE X
The longest and most important of the series is
Epistle X, which comprises a philosophical exposition
of Dante's great poem, and lays bare, so to speak, its
hidden mechanism. If the letter is genuine, it is in-
deed hardly possible to overrate its significance. The
chief reason for suspecting its authenticity is not any-
thing that it contains, but the circumstance that it
appears to have been entirely unknown to Boccaccio
56 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
and the early commentators, and has been transmitted
in MSS., not one of which is anterior to the fifteenth
century.
The letter is addressed to Can Grande della Scala, 1
a leader of the Ghibelline League and a member of
a family that had shown great kindness to the poet
in the early years of his exile. Accepting the ancient
formula that friendship implies quid pro quo, Dante
dedicates to Can Grande the " Paradise " as the most
precious gift he has to offer, and accompanies the
present with an elucidation of the principles under-
lying the entire poem. The ample compliments be-
stowed on his patron are not disproportionate to the
high praise accorded him in the " Commedia," 2 while
the passages in which he excuses his own unworthiness
are expansions of terser utterances in the opening
cantos of the poem, notably the lines :
But I, why thither come, or who concedes it?
I not Aeneas am, I am not Paul ;
Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it. 3
According to Boccaccio it was Dante's wont, when
he had finished six or eight stanzas, to send them, in
the first place, to Can Grande della Scala, " whom he
had in reverence above all other men." From the fact
that Dante does not salute him with the title of
" captain " conferred upon him by the council of the
Ghibelline League at Soncino, on i8th December,
1318, it has been concluded that the present epistle
was written before that date. As Can Grande was
1 See above, p. 27. * " Par." xvii, 76-93.
3 "Inf." ii, 31-3.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 57
nine years old in 1300 ("Par." xvii, 80-1), he would
have been quite a young man at the time when he
became the recipient of the epistle, and if he was able
to comprehend and appreciate the technicalities in
which it abounds, he must have possessed educational
attainments of a high order. The letter, though it is
a valuable index of Dante's meaning and intentions,
is far from being a complete explanation of the many
mysteries of the " Commedia." Since Dante dedicates
only the "Paradiso" to Can Grande, the epistle is
chiefly occupied with that cantica, but the part could
not be interpreted without reference to the whole, and
accordingly the author finds it necessary to pass ob-
servations on the structure and aims of the "Commedia "
in general. He enters somewhat fully into the philo-
sophical anatomy of the prologue of the " Paradiso,"
but does not complete even what he proposed to say
about that, assigning as the reason his narrow means.
It is his hope, if Can Grande should alleviate his cir-
cumstances, to continue his discourse, and not only
finish his exposition of the prologue, but set forth its
relations to the " executive part," or main body, of the
cantica.
The fourfold signification of the poem, as expounded
in 7, exactly corresponds with the method of inter-
pretation applied to, or predicated of, Canzone I, in the
"Convivio," 1 the example from Psalm cxiii (cxiv) being
again used. The literal subject of the " Commedia " is
the state of souls after death ; allegorically, the subject is
" man, in so far as by merit or demerit through the
1 ii, i.
58 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
exercise of freewill he is liable to the justice that re-
wards or punishes." On the moral and anagogical
aspects of the poem Dante says nothing, probably be-
cause he deemed them self-evident or identical with
the third and fourth senses attributed to the words of
the Psalm (" the conversion of the soul from the grief
and misery of sin to a state of grace," and " the depar-
ture of a holy soul from the bondage of this corruption
to the liberty of everlasting glory "). This view will be
confirmed on comparing 15, 16, in which he defines
the end or object of the "Paradise" alone and its
philosophic kind. The latter, he states, is moral, since
the poem as a whole was undertaken with a practical
aim, not for displaying theoretical knowledge. And
the end of both whole and part is " to remove those
living in this life from a state of misery, and to lead
them to a state of felicity." The allegory of the " Corn-
media " is to be found principally in the " Inferno "
and " Purgatorio," representing man's life on earth;
the anagogy almost entirely in the " Paradiso." This
curious term is derived from the Greek avaywyj?, and
signifies a " lifting up of the soul." The word is not
of Dante's invention; it is used by the Greek Fathers
in much the same sense of mystical interpretation.
The last section of Epistle X deals particularly with
the anagogy of the " Paradiso " in respect of those in-
terviews with blessed spirits, in which they reveal to
Dante's inquiring intellect so many precious truths,
which he, in turn, communicates to men. Mr. Gardner
happily observes that Dante was in the position of that
saintly soul depicted in the fourth book of the " Con-
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 59
vivio" as being in the fourth and last stage of its earthly
probation, which "returns to God as to the port
whence she set out, when first she entered upon the
sea of this life." It is worth while to quote his trans-
lation of the passage :
" And as his fellow-citizens come forth to meet him
who returns from a long journey, even before he enters
the gates of his city; so to the noble soul come forth
the citizens of the Eternal Life. And thus do they by
reason of her good works and contemplations; for,
being now rendered to God, and abstracted from
worldly things and thoughts, she seems to see those
who she believes are with God." l
Dante discusses, besides the subject, the form and
title of the poem. Form is of two kinds; one regards
the division of the work into cantiche, cantos, and
rhymes, and the other has to do with literary technique.
The title runs : " Here beginneth the Comedy of Dante
Alighieri, a Florentine by nation, not morals." The
section devoted to this topic states the origin of the
term "Comedy," for which Dante was indebted to
Uguccione's book about derivations, and he explains
why he chose it as the title of his poem. Comedy, he
observes, is the exact opposite of tragedy, since the
former has a rude beginning and ends happily. This
is true of the " Commedia," which commences with the
horrors of the " Inferno," and concludes with the joys
of the "Paradiso." There was, however, a second
reason, which he had discovered in the " Ars Poetica "
of Horace that comedy naturally adopts an easy, col-
1 " Conv." iv, 28.
60 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
loquial style. This is a feature of his own composition,
written in the vulgar idiom in which little women con-
verse. Hence it will be seen that Dante was not in-
fluenced in the smallest degree by the dramatic
element in his poem, and still less by its excursions
into the region of burlesque. Indeed, there is no more
extraordinary example of the vicissitudes of language,
than that a term, which, on Dante's own showing,
originally meant a rustic ditty, should be used to de-
signate the most elaborate poem, on the most solemn
of themes, that has ever been penned.
12. ECLOGUES
Dante, however, was out of sympathy neither with
pastoral subjects nor with pastoral poetry. He men-
tions incidentally that he once saw a flock of frightened
sheep jump, one after the other, into a well; l and this
is merely one of many similes drawn from the life of
the fields. It may seem at first rather inconsequent to
conclude this account of Dante's epistles with his two
eclogues, but the latter are essentially epistolary in
character, and the circumstance that they are in metre
may be neglected as an accident. The compositions
belong to the latest period of Dante's existence, when
he was residing at Ravenna, and the way they came
to be written was as follows:
Giovanni del Virgilio, a jurist of Bologna, and an
admirer of the poet, sent him an epistje in Latin hexa-
meters, in which he reproached him for casting his
1 "Conv." i, ii.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 61
pearls before swine by inditing his masterpiece in one
of the Italian dialects. He was anxious that Dante
should come to Bologna and receive the laurel wreath
in that city. With that object he placed before him a
choice of subjects which he deemed worthy to engage
the poet's pen, and were all concerned with important
contemporary events, such as the death of Henry VII,
the memorable combat at Monte Catini, in which
Uguccione della Faggiuola overthrew the army of
Florence, a military success of Can Grande della Scala,
and the naval expedition of King Robert of Naples
for the succour of Genoa. The last of these incidents
occurred in the summer of 1318 a circumstance that
helps to fix the date of the correspondence.
To this overture Dante replied in a poem which
was, like Giovanni's, in Latin hexameters, but the an-
swer took the form of an eclogue, wherein Dante styles
himself Tityrus and Giovanni del Virgilio Mopsus
names familiar to them both from figuring in the first
and fifth eclogues of the Roman Virgil. Other pseudo-
nyms are Meliboeus and Alphesiboeus, of which the
former stands for Dino Perini, a fellow-exile of the
poet, and the latter for Fiducio de' Milotti, while
Guido Novello appears under the disguise of lolas.
These characters also are borrowed from the Bu-
colica.
It is at first rather surprising that Dante, after all
the labour bestowed on his great Italian poem, should
have condescended to these Latin exercises. One
would almost have expected that per lungo silenzio
fioco he had forgotten the art, and would have feared
62 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
to compete with an expert versifier like Giovanni. In-
stead of that he enters with zest into the pastime,
writing with wonderful ease, just as if this style of
composition were his regular avocation. From the
way he expresses himself towards the close of the first
eclogue, in which he writes of his hands as ready to
milk and promises to send Mopsus ten full pails, it
has been inferred that the "Commedia" was not yet
finished, the ten pails representing an instalment of
ten cantos of the "Paradiso." (The commencement
of Giovanni's poem indicates that the " Inferno " and
" Purgatorio " were not only complete, but known to
the writer.) Thus it would seem" that Dante actually
interrupted his important task in order to engage in
this graceful recreation. It is difficult to understand
Gaspary's assertion that Dante "put down the pre-
sumptuous act of impertinence with fine irony." On
the contrary, he appears to have been delighted at
Virgilio's interest, and writes in the gayest of spirits.
He tells us that he laughed at Meliboeus and could
hardly stop laughing? It is clear that he had not re-
nounced all hope of returning to Florence, and being
crowned with the laurel in his own city, when it had
been fully earned by the portrayal of the heavenly
regions. So Mopsus must excuse him. Dante takes
Giovanni's criticisms in good part, having indeed an-
ticipated them in his letter to Can Grande, 2 and he
humorously proposes to keep him in tow by forward-
ing more of the same poetical stuff that had incurred
his censure.
1 11. 4i-3- ~ 11- 52-3; Epistle x, 11. 224-5.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 63
In his second epistle Giovanni adopts the pastoral
style, and referring to Dante's cherished hope of re-
storation to Florence, makes one allusion which would
be consistent with better relations between Dante and
his wife than have been generally suspected.
Ah me ! that thou should'st dwell in squalid hut
With dust o'erlaid, and should'st in righteous wrath
Mourn for the fields of Arno, fields from thee
Stolen, and from thy flock. Ah, deed of shame
For that ungrateful city ! . . .
Oh, that once more thou mightest see thy locks,
Locks grey and sacred, gain a second youth,
Grown golden, and be trimmed by Phyllis' self.
How wilt thou then behold with wondering look
Thy vine-clad cottage ! l
The natural interpretation of this passage is that
Giovanni included in his good wishes not merely
Dante's return to Florence, but reunion with the wife
of his youth. Meanwhile he renews the invitation to
the poet to visit Bologna. In his reply Dante finally
rejects the suggestion. Already in his first eclogue he
had intimated his fear of "forests and heathenish
regions," meaning by this that Bologna was a place
with anti-Imperial traditions. He now professes alarm
at the monster Polyphemus, intending probably King
Robert of Naples. The whole eclogue depicts Mopsus
as a Sicilian shepherd foolishly enamoured of "the
dry rocks of the Cecropes."
It is stated by the writer of the glosses in the Laur-
entian MS. that the second eclogue, which is supposed
1 ii, 35-8; 44-6; Plumptre's tr.
64 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
to have been written in the spring of 1320 or 1321 did
not reach Virgilio until after Dante's death, when
Jacopo, the poet's son, discovered it and sent it to the
Bolognese scholar. Towards the close of the poem we
meet with the lines:
This honoured head, to gather wreaths for which,
Wreaths that fade not, e'en now prepares himself
The dresser of the vineyard. 1
This language seems as if inspired by premonitions
of approaching death, and Giovanni del Virgilio so
read it. The two do not appear to have met in this
world, and the younger man, unable to testify his
reverence for Dante in any other way, indited his
epitaph.
It should not pass unnoticed that in these eclogues
Dante revived pastoral verse, which had been in abey-
ance since th,e Augustan age, and was destined to
acquire considerable vogue both in Italy and in
Europe generally. The poems are immeasurably
superior to most of the kind produced subsequently,
but, in spite of that, their authenticity has been called
in question. The second eclogue, in particular, has
been suspected, partly because Dante, as Tityrus, is
mentioned in the third person in the first eclogue
this is not the case and partly because it has been
deemed unlikely that the poet would apply to himself
such flattering expressions as " this honoured head."
But many passages might be cited, proving that Dante
had come to regard the poetic laurel as his due, and
1 11. 86-7 ; Plumptre's tr.
EPISTLES AND ECLOGUES 65
he does not scruple to class himself with the greatest
poets of antiquity.
The sixth was I, 'mid so much wit. 1
13. SONNET TO GIOVANNI QUERINI
Several of Dante's Italian poems are of an epistolary
nature, but it will be convenient to refer to them else-
where, with the exception of the sonnet addressed to
Giovanni Querini, which may be termed his Nunc
Dimittis. Querini was a Venetian poet, who sent
Can Grande a sonnet wherein he calls himself his
"faithful servitor, desirous of seeing the holy glory of
the Paradise the poet sings." He therefore prays him
" to be pleased to show forth the fair flowers of that
plant," i.e. to publish some cantos of the "Paradise."
To this warm admirer Dante supposing the composi-
tion to be genuine revealed the feelings that pos-
sessed him in his last years; the reader will not fail to
observe how well they accord with the sentiments set
forth in the passage of the " Convivio " before quoted.
The King by whose rich grace His servants be
With plenty beyond measure set to dwell,
Ordains that I my bitter wrath dispel,
And lift my eyes to the great consistory;
Till, noting how in glorious quires agree
The citizens of that fair citadel,
To the Creator I His creature swell
Their song, and all their love possesses me.
1 "Inf." iv, 102.
F
66 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
So when I contemplate the great reward
To which our God has called the Christian seed ,
I long for nothing else but only this.
And then my soul is grieved in thy regard,
Dear friend, who reck'st not of thy nearest need,
Renouncing for slight joys the perfect bliss. 1
1 Rossetti's tr. of Sonnet XXXVII.
PART II
CRITICAL AND TECHNICAL
CHAPTER I
DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE
i. THE LATIN INCUBUS
AT the conclusion of the preceding section we had
occasion to allude to Dante's estimate of his own
importance as a poet. As we there observed, he
claimed to rank with the first of the world's bards,
who had existed up to that time Homer, Virgil,
Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. It is singular that he does
not include Statius in this elect company, since in the
twenty-fourth canto of the " Purgatorio " l he couples
him with Virgil, terming them " mighty marshals of
the world*" Dante, then, has himself pointed to his
place in literature he is " a marshal of the world."
Not one of the ancients with whom he challenges com-
parison, with the exception of Homer, attained his
standard of greatness, and of moderns Shakespeare
alone can be set in the same category.
It was not, however, with any idea of vindicating
Dante's pre-eminence as a poet that we resolved on
the inclusion of the present chapter. It was rather to
indicate his relationships with writers of lesser note
1 I- 99.
69
70 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
his obligations to half-forgotten singers, whose ex-
periments prepared the way for him, and apart from
whom his genius would have taken a widely different
direction.
Dante's indebtedness is colossal. He assimilated
nearly all that was accessible in sacred and profane
literature, and so great was his appetite for learning
it may well be thought that, if the culture of the
age had comprehended a knowledge of Greek, his
erudition would have been yet greater. But Dante
was restricted to Latin, and his references to Homer
and Aristotle are a little misleading. The former he
knew only as a great name, a great tradition, while the
philosophical works of the Stagyrite were available
only at second or third hand, through the medium of
Latin translations. Latin occupied a unique position
in his esteem, both on account of its perfection as a
language, and the intellectual treasures of which it
was the key. It may be added that Dante did not
conceive of Latin and Italian as entirely separate and
distinct. Latin was a grammatical form of Italian;
Italian, Latinum vulgare. He might thus regard him-
self as being in the succession of great poets of old
Virgil, Horace, etc. in another sense than Chaucer,
for example. Whether he wrote in Latin or in " dia-
lect " was a matter of convenience, and, to some ex-
tent, of prescription. There were considerations lead-
ing both ways considerations on which he dwells at
length in the " Convivio." The chief obstacle to the
use of Italian was the aristocratic prejudice of which
Virgilio makes himself the mouthpiece in his first
DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 71
poetical epistle with its picture of Davus, the typical
slave of Latin comedy, seeking to solve the riddles of
the "ambiguous sphinx" in the cross-ways. Further
evidence of this bias may be found in the Letter of
Frate Ilario.
"But I beholding there the vulgar tongue, and
showing by the fashion of my countenance my wonder-
ment thereat, he asked the reason of the same. I
answered that I marvelled he should sing in that
language; for it seemed a difficult thing, nay incred-
ible, that those most high conceptions could be ex-
pressed in common language; nor did it seem right
such and so worthy a science should be clothed in
such plebeian garments. 'You think aright,' he said,
'and I myself have thought so.' And when at first
the seeds of these matters, perhaps inspired by
Heaven, began to bud, I chose that language which
was most worthy of them; and not alone chose
it, but began forthwith to poetize therein, after this
wise:
Ultima regna canam fluido contermina mundo
Spiritibus quae lata patent ; quae praemia solvunt
Pro meritis cuicumque suis.
" But when I recalled the condition of the present
age, and saw the songs of the illustrious poets esteemed
almost as naught, and knew that the generous men,
for whom in better days these things were written,
had abandoned, ah me! the liberal arts unto vulgar
hands, I threw aside the delicate lyre, which had armed
my flank, and attuned another more befitting the ear
72 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
of moderns. For the food that is hard we hold in vain
to the mouths of sucklings." 1
Whether such words were ever uttered by Dante
makes no difference for our present purpose, since
there is reason to think they represent, accurately
enough, his view of the subject. Thus in the " Con-
vivio " 2 he speaks of the wicked neglect that has aban-
doned learning to those who prostitute it for gain,
while the really noble princes, barons, knights, and
also ladies, qualified to enjoy the pleasures of intellect
are strangers to Latin. We have to remember that
many of Dante's writings, his Epistles, his Eclogues,
his treatises on popular poetry and monarchy, and
possibly some others are in Latin, obviously because
it was in those days the language of diplomacy, the
Universities, and the Church. As the " Commedia "
deals with the mysteries of religion and recapitulates
most of the topics already treated in the Epistles and
the "De Monarchia," Latin appeared the more natural
and appropriate vehicle, while the use of the despised
vernacular was a palpable innovation. It is not that
Italian was deemed unsuitable for all literary com-
position it was well enough for amatory verse but
there was no precedent for its employment in a poem
intended to be immortal and sublime. While Dante
touched, on the one hand, the classical writers and
those whose self-esteem was founded on an acquaint-
ance with them, on the other hand he stood in close
relations with the professors of a modern art of poetry,
which had formerly arrived at some distinction in
1 Arrivabene, " Comento Storico," p. 379. * i, 9.
DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 73
Provence, and had recently advanced in the Peninsula,
so as to command the adhesion and respect of men
of talent and learning, like Dante himself. The
" Commedia " is the final reconciliation of these
divergent and hostile tendencies, notwithstanding
Petrarch's attempt, in the next generation, to bring
about their divorce.
2. TROUBADOUR ART
In the " Vita Nuova " l Dante has some interesting
remarks on the origin, history, and status of those
whom he terms dicitori per rima ("rhymers"). Ac-
cording to his account, which appears to be correct,
the rise of this class was a comparatively recent phe-
nomenon, dating back not more than one hundred and
fifty years from the time he was writing. He evidently
regards them as usurpers, who have taken the place
of the neo-Latin poets, and he finds the reason of
their popularity in the exigences of love. It was no
use addressing a lady in Latin, because she did not
understand the language. A love-poem in the ver-
nacular, on the contrary, might win its way, not only
to her head, but to her heart.
Dante's opinion of the dicitori^ as there stated, is a
somewhat low one, and he seems hardly to know what
to make of them, or where to place them. He is
reluctant to accord them the name of poets a term
reserved for those dignified by learning, who can
blossom forth in the Latin tongue, and are able to
1 xxv.
74 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
theorize on their art, as he himself proceeds to do in
that very passage. Yet he is constrained to allow they
are nothing else than poeti volgari, and to grant them
the same licence as poets proper.
Now it is plain that Dante refers not merely to
Italian rhymers, but to those of Provence, since the
native poetry was a product of troubadour verse, and
the period assigned to the genesis and growth of ver-
nacular literature covers the brief life of Provengal
ministrelsy, while it would be much too long for the
imitative offshoot. As we shall hereafter see more
clearly, Dante looked upon Provengal and Italian,
and, in less degree, North French poetry as a common
study, and in his " De Vulgari Eloquentia" he culls
examples, almost indifferently, from writers in all three
languages. It is significant that he calls contemporary
Italian rhymers " troubadours," l thus affirming the
identity of the art on both sides of the Alps.
The greatest of the Provengal poets, to Petrarch as
to Dante, was Arnaut Daniel, who is introduced into
the twenty-sixth canto of the " Purgatorio," and per-
mitted to speak in his own language a privilege
vouchsafed to no other foreigner. Other troubadours
mentioned in the "Commedia" are Geraut de Bor-
neuil, Folquet de Marseilles, Bertran de Born, and,
above all, Sordello, an Italian born at Goito, near
Mantua. Some few more are named in the " De Vulgari
Eloquentia," which affords abundant proof of Dante's
acquaintance with Provengal writings. Moreover, of
the seven examples of munificence cited in the "Con-
1 "Vita Nuova," iii.
DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 75
vivio " * four are directly attributable to Dante's study
of the Provengal "Lives of the Troubadours." It is
worth remarking that, while Dante was clearly familiar
with Sordello's compositions, the incidents of the
troubadour's career, 2 including his elopement with
Cunizza, were derived from a.sirventes of Peire Bremon
Ricas Novas.
This deep and extensive knowledge with Provengal
models cannot have been without effect on Dante's
modes of thought and expression, and the honourable
place assigned to Sordello in the " Commedia " is
evidently an acknowledgement of the benefit received
from his poems more especially his " Ensenhamen."
Dante can hardly have included Sordello and Arnaut
Daniel, the latter of whom he considerably overrates,
in his disparaging allusions to the didtori in the " Vita
Nuova," but it is a fact that Provengal poetry is essen-
tially mediocre, and Dante seems to have realized its
limitations. The word "troubadour" means "inventor"
" inventor," that is to say, of new and complicated
metres wedded to original airs, which, in reality, deter-
mined the form of the stanza. The troubadour was
therefore first a composer, then a metrician, and only
thirdly a poet. The melody was called the son, and
the term "sonnet," a misnomer, is reminiscent of the
circumstance. Dante, being a true poet, was naturally
most concerned with the sentiment or substance of
his verse, but he was not indifferent to a musical
accompaniment, and Casella appears to have set
several of his odes notably " Amor che nella mente
1 iv, II. * "Par." ix.
76 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
mi ragiona," 1 one of those selected for comment in
the "Convivio." In the second book of that treatise
he speaks of the last stanza of a canzone, which was
known as the tornata? It was so called, he tells us,
because it was originally the practice for dicitori, hav-
ing ended their song, to return to, or recapitulate, the
points of the composition. Dante himself departed
from the usage, and he draws attention to the fact
that the concluding stanzas of his own odes not only
introduce matter extraneous in sense to the main body
of the poem, but seldom correspond to the other
stanzas in structure, so that they could not be sung to
the same air. This renders it evident that, however
appreciatively Dante may record Casella's services, he
thought of the musical setting in the same way as a
modern lyrical poet would do as a mere accessory
that must adapt itself to the words, not vice versa,
3. THE DOLCE STIL Nuovo
On the other hand, Dante was very strict with re-
gard to prosody, and it was in the domain of versifica-
tion that he found himself most in sympathy with the
troubadours, to whose rules he conformed, and whom
he endeavoured to rival in the intricacy of his metres.
Dante was a great master of rhythm, and this necessary
equipment he owed, in a large measure, to the minstrel-
poets of Provence. But he owed something nay,
much to his Italian predecessors, not only in the
direction of rhythm, but in the cultivation of the
1 "Purg."ii, 106-12; "Conv."iii. 2 "Conv."ii, 12.
DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 77
language for poetic purposes and the adoption of a
more elevated style of thought. Some of the earlier
poets Dante of Maiano were bilingual and wrote
indifferently in Provengal and Italian, but Alighieri
was indebted less to those pioneers who clothed
troubadour ideas in Italian dress, than to the later
philosophic school the poets of the dolce stil nuovo,
whom he acknowledged as compeers. The phrase
quoted it is constantly employed by critics and his-
torians of Italian literature in a technical sense occurs
in a speech ascribed to Buonagiunta da Lucca in the
twenty-fourth canto of the " Purgatorio." '
" O brother, now I see," he said, "the knot,
Which me, the Notary, and Guittone held
Short of the sweet new style that now I hear."
By "the Notary" is meant Jacopo da Lentini,
who is put forward as a prominent representative of
the Sicilian school of Italian poetry, which flourished
in the first half of the thirteenth century, and was
marked by its close adherence to Provencal models.
Guittone d'Arezzo and Buonagiunta belong to the
scuola dottrinale, which formed a transition from the
Sicilian school to that of the dolce stil nuovo, and
occupied the second half of the thirteenth century.
Guittone began by writing in the troubadour manner,
and his early poems differ from. Pro.vencal verse chiefly
by their lack of artistic grace. Later in life, he aban-
doned this lighter vein for. a more pretentious style,
disfigured by intentional obscurity and abundance of
1 . 55-7-
7 8 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Latinisms. In a dry, unemotional way and with hardly
a touch of originality, he discoursed on morals, philo-
sophy, and religion, and thus acquired a considerable
reputation, which Dante held to be undeserved, and a
deplorable example of the uncritical applause of the
ignorant public. 1 He found fault not only with the
mechanical nature of the compositions of the two pre-
ceding schools, the absence of true feeling and all that
goes to make real poetry, but with their diction.
Buonagiunta da Lucca, Guittone d'Arezzo, and Brun-
ette Latini, he maintains, are, strictly speaking, muni-
cipal (or, as we should say, provincial) rather than
national poets, whereas Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni,
Cino da Pistoia, and himself have plumbed the excel-
lence of the vulgar tongue. 2
These four are the most distinguished exponents of
the dolce stil nuovo, which is characterized on the one
hand by the purity and refinement of its language,
and on the other by the freshness and ideality with
which it treats of woman and love. It is based on
philosophic conceptions, but it is not often these are
obtruded on our notice in a formal fashion. There is
" a hidden ground of thought and of austerity within,"
but outside, the Muse is " young, gay, radiant, adorn'd."
Imagination and fancy are granted free play; they are
not sacrificed to the tyranny of the syllogism, as was
the case in Guittone's productions. Dante was not the
founder of this school, for Guido Cavalcanti not to
mention others was his senior by ten years. The real
1 "Purg."xxvi, 124-6.
1 "DeVulg. Eloq."i, 13.
DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 79
founder, however, was Guido Guinicelli, of Bologna
(1230-1276), of whom he speaks as
the father
Of me and of my betters, who had ever
Practised the sweet and gracious rhymes of love. l
Guinicelli was the author of one ode, in particular,
in which philosophy is expounded by means of sens-
ible images and in a strain of high emotional, al-
most religious, ecstasy and fervour. This poem was
truly epoch-making and directly inspired several of
Dante's lyrics, besides fixing his general point of view.
Gentleness, or nobility of character, is predicated in
the lover as an indispensable condition, and the only
adequate symbol of love's transcendent passion, with its
light and fire, is the Sun, or God. As the ode served
the poets of the dolce stil nuovo as a kind of creed and
was the corner stone of their philosophy, it will not be
amiss to quote some of the stanzas.
Within the gentle heart Love shelters him,
As birds within the green shade of the grove.
Before the gentle heart, in Nature's scheme,
Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.
For with the sun, at once,
So sprang its light immediately ; nor was
Its birth before the sun's.
And Love hath its effect in gentleness
Of very self; even as
Within the middle fire the heat's excess.
The fire of Love comes to the gentle heart
Like as its virtue to a precious stone ;
To which no star its influence can impart
Till it is made a pure thing by the sun :
1 "Purg." xxvi, 97-9.
80 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
For when the sun hath smit
From out its essence that which then was vile,
The star endoweth it.
And so the heart created by God's breath
Pure, true, and clean from guile,
A woman, like a star, enamoureth.
God in the understanding of high Heaven
Burns more than in our sight the living sun :
There to behold His Face unveiled is given ;
And Heaven, whose will is homage paid to One,
Fulfils the things which live
In God, from the beginning excellent.
So should my lady give
That truth which in her eyes is glorified,
On which her heart is bent,
To me, whose service waiteth at her side.
" My lady," God shall ask, " what daredst thou?"
(When my soul stands with all her acts reviewed:)
" Thou passedst Heaven, into My sight, as now
To make Me of vain love similitude.
To Me doth praise belong,
And to the Queen of all the realm of grace,
Who endeth fraud and wrong."
Then may I plead, ' ' As though from Thee he came,
Love wore an angel's face :
Lord, if I loved her, count it not my shame. "
Rossetti's translation is so good that it seems a little
ungracious to point out a small inaccuracy in the last
three lines. The w.ord " Love " is not found in the
original verse. " Guinidelli is speaking of his lady.
It was his lady, not Love, who " wore an angel's
face," as if she came from God. Formally, the matter
is of some importance as the poets of this school
spiritualize woman and constantly insist on her
DANTE'S PLACE IN LITERATURE 81
angelic aspect and nature. Her celestial origin is one
of their conventions. The mystery of love and the
sanctity of woman are the two poles on which the whole
of this poetry, in so far as it is true to itself, revolves.
Dante uses the phrase dolce stil nuoro * but once, but
the cognate expression dolcidetti occurs in its immediate
context, and is also applied to Cino's love poems in a
sonnet that Dante addressed to him. 2 The term dolce
(literally " sweet ") signified what we call charming. In
what did the charm consist? Dante traced it to three
dominant features spontaneity, grace, and novelty. 3
In the "Convivio," 4 as in Canzone xx, he distin-
guishes between the bonta and bellezza (the "good-
ness" and " goodliness ") of his verse, placing the
former in the embellishment of the language, and the
latter in the mystic significance; and he confidently
expects that the former quality will commend it to
many unable to divine the latent meaning. His ode
is to plead:
Observe at least how beauteous I am. s
We are now in a position to define Dante's place in
literature, especially as a dicitore. From the Provencals
he imbibed a scrupulous regard for metrical precision,
from Guittone and his followers, the element of learn-
ing and the tendency to be recondite and obscure as
regards the kernel of his discourse, and from Guini-
celli and the later apostles of the dolce stil nuovo, pre-
1 "Purg."xxvi, 122. 2 Son. xxxiv, 14.
3 " Purg." xxiv, 50-60. * ii, 12.
5 "Conv."ii; Canz. i, 61.
G
82 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
occupation with the essence of love combined with a
natural, picturesque and passionate style, and pure
and elevated diction. In the "Commedia" Dante
departed in some measure from the rules to which he
had subscribed as a didtore one of the band of the
dolce stil nuovo and became a law unto himself. The
licences in which he indulged are covered and ex-
plained by the fact that, while his odes are throughout
lofty and fastidious compositions, that conform to the
"tragic use" of the vernacular poets, 1 the "Corn-
media," answering to its title, is less tense, more varied
in tone, containing many passages unmatched for their
sublimity, whilst in others it descends to a homely
simplicity that would have been judged out of place
in a canzone. Dante, then, may be regarded, in his
final phase, as an enlarged and emancipated Florentine
dicitore, who had not indeed forgotten the principles
of his early art, but had adapted them to the demands
of a matured genius, whose potent originality could no
longer be confined by formula.
1 "De Vulg. Eloq."ii, 7.
CHAPTER II
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA"
i. SCOPE
WE have now considered, in the most general
way, Dante's place with respect to formative
poetical tendencies. Hitherto we have discussed only
those of his writings which are in Latin, and for the
sake of convenience we shall pursue this course until
we have done with his Latin works. The circumstance
that Dante left a relatively large body of Latin prose
compositions is sufficiently striking, seeing that he was
the avowed champion of the volgare. The reason,
doubtless, is that while Italian poetry by dint of use
had already acquired a degree of fixity, Italian prose
was still inchoate. On this point we shall have some-
thing to say when we come to deal with the " Vita
Nuova."
Dante's attitude towards Latin and Italian, as rival
modes of speech, betrays some inconsistency. In the
" Convivio " ' he places the former on an altogether
higher plane, while in the " De Vulgari Eloquentia" 2
he contends that the latter is necessarily the more
84 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
noble. These divergent accounts may be easily recon-
ciled. Latin was better fitted for the formulation of
scientific and philosophical ideas, but it could never
attain to the vital warmth, the persuasive force of a
language to which one has been accustomed from in-
fancy. The " De Vulgari Eloquentia " is written in
Latin because it is philosophical and scientific, and
designed for a class of readers apt to despise the speech
and songs of the people. Dante had committed his
fame to the volgare, and thus this treatise may be re-
garded as in some sort an apologia, but its main object
was to afford help and guidance to those who might
follow in the writer's footsteps.
In the passage of the "Vita Nuova" before referred
to, 1 Dante speaks of didtori in the mass, and, as we
have seen, hesitates to accord them the name of poets.
In the " De Vulgari Eloquentia " he recognizes they
are poets, but irregular poets. The great Latin poets
have distinguished themselves by scrupulous observ-
ance of the laws of versification, whereas the didtori
compose at random. 2 It was with the intention of
remedying this state of things that Dante undertook
the present treatise. Eloquentia, in this context, sig-
nifies poetical style. Gaspary, in his extremely useful
and able "History of Italian Literature," 3 denies this,
and affirms that eloquentia "stands for language, or,
at the outside, for eloquence in general." In support
of this opinion he points out that the author states
at the commencement that vulgaris eloquentia is
necessary for all, and that even women and children
1 See p. 73. 2 ii, 4. 3 Oelsner's tr., p. 255.
THE "HE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 85
strive after it. But women do not strive after language
in the simple sense. On the other hand, there are
probably few persons of either sex who have not at
some time in their lives attempted rhyme, which
necessarily implies conscious effort. As for Gaspary's
other argument that at the close of the first book Dante
proposes to deal with the other vulgaria after discuss-
ing the vulgare illustre, it is pretty evident that he
intended to treat of them in relation to poetry. 1 What
he means by eloqitentia is shown by the concluding
sentence of chapter xii, in which he says that the
" eloquent " natives of Sicily and Apulia have departed
from their own dialect, as he had shown, i.e. by speci-
mens of their poetry.
It is hardly worth while for Gaspary to concede
that eloquentia may signify "eloquence in general," as
artistic prose could hardly be said to exist. In the sixth
chapter of the second book Dante adduces examples
of beautiful prose constructions in Latin, while analo-
gous constructions in Provencal and Italian are cited
from the poets. 2 It may seem strange that the term
" eloquence," which we associate with prose or oratory,
should be consistently applied to poetry, but any sur-
prise felt on this score is diminished, not only by the
absence of prose models, but by Dante's definition of
poetry as " nothing else than rhetorical invention in a
musical setting." 3
1 See ii, 4.
This is natural, as Dante is treating specifically of the "tragic"
style ; why, however, Latin prose sentences ? See below.
3 ii, 4-
86 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Note. The writer has been led to reconsider this most difficult
question by chancing on the identical phrase vulgaris eloquentia
in a context in which it seems impossible that eloqnentia can
bear any other construction than "language." In 1274 the
Council of Salzburg prohibited the festival of the Boy-Bishop,
speaking of it as " ludi noxii quos vulgaris eloquentia Epis-
copus puerorum appellat." This proves that the word might
be, and was, used in the simple sense of "language." It does
not follow, however, that Dante so used it, and the probability
is that he did not. Indeed, he seems to guard against miscon-
ception by a tacit distinction between eloquentia and locutio in
the opening section. When he means mere speech he employs
the latter term. It is also pretty clear that when he describes
vnlgaris locutio as the subjeclum he intends not that it is the
subject of the treatise, but that it is the raw material of the
study, whereas eloquentia is the finished article. The very ex-
pression vulgaris eloquentiae doctrina (or "science of vulgar
eloquence "), indicates that perfection of speech is the end or
purpose, and as such perfection had been attained only in verse,
the treatise naturally resolved itself into an ars poetica. The
whole discussion recalls a saying of Cicero, which explains much
of the uncertainty attaching to the employment of terms that
must have been almost synonymous originally, and may again
have been confused in the careless diction of mediaeval scribes :
" Quamquam enim omnis locutio oratio est, tamen unius oratoris
locutio hoc proprio signata nomine est" (" Or." 19, 64).
2. TITLE
The correct form of the title is undoubtedly " De
Vulgari Eloquentia," which is used by Dante himself
both in this treatise and the "Convivio." 1 Villani,
Boccaccio, and Bruni also mention the work by this
name. Yet for a long while the title " De Vulgari
Eloquio " prevailed. Gaspary is wrong in attributing
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 87
this error to Villani. It sprang from the MS. heading
of the first chapter, Inripit liber de vulgari eloquio, sivc
idiomate, editus per Dan/em. 1
3. DATE
The date of the first book can be determined ap-
proximately from internal evidence. The fact that
Dante alludes to his exile 2 proves that it was written
subsequently to 1301, while the mention of John of
Montferrat as still living, 3 attests that it was composed
before January, 1305 the date of that nobleman's
death. There seems to be no sufficient reason for
questioning that the second book, or what we have of
it, belongs to the same period, though some hold
that it was produced in the last years of Dante's life,
and, more precisely, in 1319 or 1320.* The treatise
was to include at least four books, but it breaks off
in the fourteenth chapter of the second. It is much
to be regretted that the work was never completed,
as the fourth book was to contain a dissertation on
the " comic " style, 5 by which is probably meant the
style exemplified in the "Commedia." If the fourth
book had been written the date of the second and
succeeding books of the treatise might have been
roughly calculated by the nature of the references, if
any, to Dante's masterpiece. If, that is to say, there
were quotations from the later books of the " Paradise,"
we should be safe in assigning the treatise to the close
1 Toynbee, "Studies," p. 162. * i, 6.
3 i, 12. * ii, 4. s ii, 4-
88 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
of the poet's life. But for the time-references in the
first book, there would be something tempting in the
theory that just as in the "Vita Nuova" Dante
analyzes certain earlier poems, so at the end of his
career he devoted himself to an account of the prin-
ciples by which he and others had succeeded in rais-
ing Italian letters to a position equal or superior to
that of North France and Provence. 1
4. LANGUAGE IN GENERAL
Dante begins at the beginning, and deals in the
first instance with the phenomenon of language.
Speech is the peculiar attribute of man, shared neither
by the angels nor by the lower creations, because
they have no need of it. The axiom that Nature
abhors superfluity is repeated in the "DeMonarchia." 2
The opening chapters are taken up with the discus-
sion of sundry curious questions, such as whether
Adam or Eve was the first speaker, and what was the
language of Eden. Dante pronounces for Hebrew,
which continued to be the one universal language
down to the building of the Tower of Babel, and was
inherited by the sons of Heber, thence called Hebrews.
Here, as in the " De Monarchia," Dante strongly sup-
ports the Providential view of history, and holds that
the transmission of the original language, fashioned
by man in the time of his innocence, was ordained
that it might be spoken by Christ. 3
1 i, 10. a i, 14.
3 See " Par." xxvi, 109, etc., which contradicts this account.
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 89
Dante then proceeds to sketch the consequences of
the confusion of tongues, and, as far as Europe is
concerned, distributes the population into three large
groups, one extending from the mouth of the Danube
to the western boundaries of England, the second on
the east of Hungary, and the third comprising the rest
of Europe. This portion of the treatise is open to
serious criticism, as Dante appears to have thought that
the Hungarians and Slavs were Teutonic races, and that
the Spaniards spoke the lingua d'oc, whereas this was
only true of the inhabitants of the north-eastern pro-
vinces. However, he says truly that North French,
Provengal, and Italian are offshoots of one language,
and he conveniently distinguishes them by their sym-
bols of affirmation, oil, oc, and si. But if they differ
on this point, they agree in many others, notably in
the use of a single word amor for love.
5. LATIN AND THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES
Coming to Italy, he finds a considerable rift between
the language of si as it is spoken on the right and on
the left of the Peninsula. Hardly two towns have
precisely the same dialect, and two streets in Bologna
have dissimilar brogues. Two factors are primarily
responsible for this condition of things time and
space. In the course of ages words change, and
when people migrate, they acquire new habits and
customs, which modify their speech. This is no
doubt true, but Dante proceeds to make the strange
assertion that grammatical Latin is an artificial inven-
90 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
tion, "regulated by the common consent of many
nations," the object being that there might be one
language, not subject to variation, which might serve
as a repertory of ancient history and philosophy, and
as a means of intercourse between distant peoples.
In making this statement Dante seems to have con-
sidered only the functions of Latin in his own day,
although he clearly recognizes that the " invention "
is very old certainly older than the Romance lan-
guages. 1 But it is plain that he regarded it as having
been always, like classical Greek, 2 a secondary form
of speechj distinct from the spoken language, and a
sort of adjunct of high civilization. It was therefore
not identical with the single primitive language of which
French, Provencal, and Italian are derivatives, and
which he appears to have considered indigenous
throughout Southern Europe. In the fifteenth century
there was a famous controversy between Leonardo
Aretino and Flavio Biondi as to the relations between
classical Latin and the oral language of Rome, and
the former went so far as to maintain that the gulf
between them was as great as in his own day, that
literary Latin was unintelligible to the plebeians, and
that, when they attended the theatre, they had to be
content with the spectacular aspects of a play.
This was a palpable exaggeration, but there is no
doubt either that there were differences between oral
and literary Latin, or that the former was the founda-
tion of the Romance languages. Thus we find in Plautus
Scio jam, filius quod amet meus istanc meretricem?
1 i, 10. 3 i, i. 3 "As." i, i, 37.
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 91
where Cicero would have said scio filium meum amare.
The Romance languages observe the former construc-
tion, and it is noticeable that tioRgrammatua employed
in this treatise contains many instances of this and
similar departures from classical usage, e.g., dicimus
quod nullus effectus superat suam causam? Dante, too,
makes utor govern the accusative, instead of the abla-
tive. 2 These examples show that the grammatical of
the Middle Ages is far from attaining the Ciceronian
standard, but Dante does not discuss this point.
Comparing the languages of oil, oc, and si, Dante
declines the invidious task of determining which of
the three is the best, but he indicates the grounds on
which each claims precedence. French has a monopoly
of good prose; and the Arthurian romances and the
gestes of the Trojans and Romans are written in that
tongue. Dante describes the stories of King Arthur as
a " labyrinth " (ambages) a term that will be appre-
ciated by any one who has attempted to thread his
way through the " Morte Darthur," our early English
version of the French romances. In the sixteenth
canto of the " Paradise " 3 we find the lines:
Whence Beatrice, who stood somewhat apart,
Smiling appeared like unto her that coughed
At the first failing writ of Guenever.
This allusion baffled the commentators, who hunted
through the " labyrinth " in the hope of meeting with
the original passage, and, not being successful, con-
1 i, 9. - ii, 1 1 ; but stilo tragico uti, ii, 4.
3 11. I3-IS-
92 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
eluded that it must have occurred in some version
now lost. Dr. Paget Toynbee l has traced it in a thir-
teenth-century manuscript of the " Lancelot du Lac "
attributed to Walter Map. Another reference to the
Lancelot romance may be found in the fourth book of
the "Convivio," 2 and a third, much more widely
known, in the fifth canto of the " Inferno." 3
The Provencals are recognized as having been the
first to cultivate poetry in the vulgar tongue, whilst
the Italians, notably Cino of Pistoia and " his friend"
(i.e. Dante himself), have invested the art with super-
ior subtlety and charm, and based themselves more
on grammatica. All three languages, therefore, have
plausible claims to the primacy.
6. THE ITALIAN DIALECTS
Leaving this vexed question undecided, Dante re-
turns to the subject of the Italian dialects, of which
he makes the Apennine range the dividing line. It
will be noticed that the Oxford Dante has fistulae
culmen in the text, with fictile as a suggested emenda-
tion. The latter is due to Signor Pio Ragna, 4 and is
likely to commend itself to the majority of Dantists.
The " top of a water-pipe " is obviously a much less
appropriate simile than " the ridge of a tiled roof."
In all Dante distinguishes fourteen principal dia-
lects, but these are split up into subordinate varieties,
insomuch that he concludes that the total number
" Studies and Researches," 1-37. 2 C. xxiv.
3 11. 127-38.
4 Or rather Professor Vitelli, who proposed it to that editor.
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 93
of diversities amounts to a thousand at least. He
then enters on a quest for what he calls the " illus-
trious vulgar," that is to say, the type of Italian em-
ployed by the best poets. For this purpose he reviews
the various dialects, beginning with the Roman, notes
their peculiarities, and ultimately rejects them all.
A priori, it might be thought that the purest Italian
would be spoken at Rome, and, according to Dante,
the citizens held that they were not to be touched in
any sort of vernacular culture. But he quickly dis-
poses of their pretensions, and declares their dialect
the vilest jargon in Italy.
Apart from Rome, there are three quarters in which
we might reasonably look for good Italian. The first
artistic Italian poetry arose in Sicily, and Dante tells
us that even in his day Italian verse was called Si-
cilian. He admits that natives of the island produced
admirable poems, but they did not write in their own
dialect, which he shows to be quite different from the
language they employ. Another direction in which we
might glance is Bologna, the birthplace of the dolce
stil nuovo. Dante pronounces a favourable opinion on
the dialect of this city, and, indeed, accords to it the
highest place among the various brogues. But it is
not what he is seeking it is not the vulgare illustre,
as may be seen by comparing the compositions
of their celebrated poets the "greatest," Guide,
Fabruzzo, and Onesto with the talk of the pro-
letariat. 1
As for Florence and the other towns of Tuscany,
1 The Bolognese said sipa for si; cf. " Inf." xviii, 61.
94 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Dante ridicules their claims. In a previous paragraph l
he had denounced the narrow patriotism which in-
sisted that everything Florentine or Tuscan, including
the language, must be best; and in chapter xii he
shows no more respect for his native dialect than the
Roman or any other. Turpiloquium ("jargon") is the
term he applies to it, and on purpose to take down
the pride of the Tuscans, who beat all their country-
men in their frenzied conceit, he adduces specimens
of the kind of doggerel composed at Florence, Pisa,
Lucca, Siena, and Arezzo. But in Tuscany, as else-
where, there are exceptions, and he makes honourable
mention of Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, and " one
other," Florentines, and Cino of Pistoia, all of whom
have used the vulgare illustre. Guittone of Arezzo,
Buonagiunta of Lucca, and Brunette Latini, on the
other hand, though writers of note, are tainted with
provincialism. Dante is always severe on Guittone,
and later in the treatise 2 he again censures him for
not having emancipated himself from plebeian words
and plebeian constructions.
7. COURT ITALIAN
Having examined all the dialects without finding
that any of them corresponds with the vulgare illustre,
he concludes that the latter is the property of every
city and not of any one city in particular. This may
appear a fair inference from the evidence collected
and set forth, but it involves a substantial, though
1 i, 6. ii, 6.
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 95
perhaps unintentional, injustice to Tuscany. Guido
delle Colonne and other elect poets of Sicily, Guido
Gumicelli and the best bards of Bologna, no less than
the Florentine brotherhood of the do Ice stil nuovo, em-
ployed a form of speech that resembled Tuscan in-
comparably more than any other dialect. This is the
more extraordinary, since the productions of the
Sicilian school undoubtedly preceded the earliest
attempts at poetry in Tuscany itself. What is the ex-
planation of this triumph of Tuscan? It was due
partly to the geographical conditions, the central posi-
tion of the province, partly to the fact that it was a
more faithful reflection of the old Latin than the other
dialects, and partly, we may well believe, to the mental
alertness of the people, which showed itself in politics
and commerce before it was manifest in their litera-
ture. However we may choose to account for it, the
fact remains that Tuscan formed the substructure and
a large part of the superstructure of that vulgare
illustre, which had already become the shibboleth of
national, in contradistinction to local or provincial,
poetry.
It seems singular that Dante should have been
blind to a fact which no one now thinks of disputing,
but, after his banishment, he cherished bitter feelings
towards "the inhabitants of the wretched valley" (of
the Arno), 1 and he had a strong predilection for "uni-
versals," which in his philosophy are not merely
ideals or general conceptions, but real existences,
which are distributed unequally in the members of a
1 " Purg." xiv, 40-54.
96 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
class, according as those members are more or less
contaminated by foreign elements. The " universal "
being the standard by which "individuals" are es-
timated, and from which they have diverged, has not
only logical precedence, but priority in point of time.
The various dialects are so many corruptions, not of
grammatica or Latin, but of the vulgare illustre as
constituting the type or norm or bond of union.
Ideal Italian, as we should express it, is not only
illustre, but cardinale^ aulicum, and curiale, and the re-
mainder of the first book is occupied mainly with
definitions of these epithets. A thing is illustrious,
which is exceptionally bright, which receives and
emits light. Power renders a man conspicuous, and
such a man may enlighten others by his justice and
philanthropy. He is then said to be illustrious.
Dante cites as examples Seneca and Numa Pompilius.
Compared with the local dialects the vulgare illustre is
in office. It possesses power, inasmuch as it is able to
sway the hearts of people. The vulgare illustre is
" cardinal," because it resembles the hinge of a door,
and the whole herd of municipal dialects follow its
lead. It is "palatial" also, and "courtly." These
adjectives are practically synonymous in meaning, and
their use is beset with some difficulty, because there
was actually no single or central palace or court in
Italy, as was the case in Germany. Still there existed
the members of such a court in the residences of the
nobility, in which, says Dante, the vulgare illustre was
invariably spoken. Thus, although there was no Em-
peror having a palace at Rome, there was an idea
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 97
court, or, as it may be otherwise expressed, in Italy
the court had been put into commission, but its func-
tions continued to be discharged. It was the balance
in which all kinds of performances were weighed. The
term " courtly," therefore, as applied to language, has
a similar scope to " King's English."
The vulgare illustre or Latinum vulgare, as he names
it in the concluding chapter, is a "universal"; it is
proper to the whole of Italy. Dante, however, not-
withstanding his disparagement of the local dialects,
is willing to accord them recognition in their respective
spheres, which are of varying extent. There is a type
of language common to the whole of western Italy;
there are dialects proper to particular provinces, and
there are forms of speech restricted to individual
families. He proposes to deal with these inferior
kinds, when he has disposed of the vulgare illustre.
8. LITERARY DICTION
In the second book we meet with a new system of
classification, embracing an optimum, a mediocre, and
a humile vulgare. The first is identical in all respects
with the vulgare illustre, which, in Dante's opinion, it
is becoming to use in prose as well as in verse. But
there it encounters a serious and permanent obstacle
in precedent. Prose-writers are under the thraldom
of the "inventors," 1 i.e. of the poets. Postponing this
subject, Dante discusses at length the question whether
all versifiers should use the vulgare illustre, and de-
1 lnventores = trovatori.
H
98 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
cides in the negative. It is suitable only for those
who possess learning and genius, and ought to be em-
ployed on the highest themes, viz., war, love, and con-
duct. Bertran de Born, Arnaut Daniel, and Giraut de
Borneuil are mentioned as Provengal poets, who
have excelled in these three departments respectively.
Among Italians Cino of Pistoia has treated of love,
and Dante himself of conduct, e.g., in his poem be-
ginning Doglia mi reca nello corde ardtre; 1 but so far
no Italian appears to have sung of arms.
9. VERSE FORMS
The next point for consideration is the relative
value of different forms of verse the canzone, the
ballad, the sonnet, and so forth. Dante holds that the
first is the " most noble." Its name shows that it is
song par excellence, while it is complete in itself.
Ballads, on the other hand, imply the accompani-
ment of dancing, for which they are written, and this
renders them inferior to canzoni, though they rank
higher than sonnets. The most treasured and most
artistic of all lyrical structures, canzoni are suited for
the treatment of the loftiest themes in the finest
language. Many writers of canzoni, however, have not
understood the principles of versification. It was
otherwise with the Roman poets, who followed a code
of rules, and the more closely they are imitated, the
more correct will be the resultant poetry.
1 Canzone x in the Oxford Dante.
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA " 99
10. STYLES
Before discussing the metre and other properties of
the canzone, Dante touches on the various styles
the tragic, the comic, and the elegiac. By " tragic "
he means grand and elevated; by "comic," not
jocose or facetious, but comparatively simple, while
"elegiac" describes the simplest and the least pre-
tentious manner. Each style has its correspondent
language. The vulgare illustre is the language of the
tragic style, the mediocre or humile vulgare of the
comic, and the humile vulgare of the elegiac. The re-
lations between style and language, as regards comedy
and elegy, were to have been discussed in the fourth
book, which was never written. We are therefore un-
able to say to what extent the use of the local dialects
would have been admissible in the comic and elegiac
styles, but it is certain that in these the vocabulary
was not so select, and a wider range of expression was
sanctioned.
With reference to the tragic style, the character
and limitations of its vocabulary are expounded in
Chapter vii. Only stately terms are to be employed.
Babyish words, womanish words, city words 1 are
banned; and the eligible words, which survive the
process of sifting, are divided into two classes the
" well-kempt " and the " rough." The former tend to
be trisyllabic and euphonious, while the latter are
either monosyllabic or polysyllabic. Many pronouns,
1 Such terms are permissible in the " comic style " : e.g., fern-
mina (" Purg." xxiv, 43).
ioo HANDBOOK TO DANTE
conjunctions, and interjections are monosyllabic, but
they are necessary and cannot be avoided. Polysyllabic
words are ornamental, and, judiciously blended with
"well-kempt" terms, contribute to the harmony of a
sentence, although defective in certain qualities of
sound.
ii. CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES
Akin to the choice of terms is their combination in
clauses and sentences. This is the subject of Chap-
ter vi, in which Dante adduces typical examples of
construction in Latin. They are intended to illustrate
degrees of effectiveness from a simple colloquial state-
ment to a complex period, representing the highest
rhetorical art. He then cites nine odes by North
French, Provengal, and Italian poets, which attain
this standard of excellence, but he counsels his readers
to study the best Roman poets and prose-writers as
the most useful means of acquiring the habit, and,
above all things, not to be led away by perverse
admiration for Guittone's grovelling style of com-
position.
12. METRE
In Chapter iv Dante uses the phrase " pride of the
rhythms." In the following chapter he defines what
he intends by this expression, pointing out that a
great variety of metres had been in use, but none
had included more than eleven or less than three
syllables. The hendecasyllabic is the " proudest," as
taking up most time and affording most scope for the
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 101
sentiment, construction, and words. (In Chapter vii
Dante, writing of sesquipedalia verba, observes that
a word of more than eleven syllables could not
be fitted into verse. He had found one honorifica-
bilitudinitate !}. The chief poets make it a rule to begin
their canzoni with a hendecasyllabic line. Next in
favour is the heptasyllabic metre, and the association
of the two renders the verse " prouder " than the em-
ployment of either singly. Verse consisting of an even
number of syllables, e.g., decasyllabic, is seldom used,
says Dante, on account of its rudeness, but the real
reason was that the Italian language is so rich in
" feminine " or double rhymes, whereas the opposite
is the case with our own.
In Chapter viii Dante raises the question whether
the term canzone, or song, properly applies to the
words or music, and answers that it is the words that
constitute the song. Other expressions are used to
describe the melody, and no musician thinks of call-
ing a tune his song, except in so far as it is wedded
to words. Dante, however, seems to contemplate a
musical setting as a natural, if not necessary, com-
plement of a canzone, and indeed all kinds of lyrical
poetry. A canzone consists of a series of stanzas,
which must be uniform as regards the number of lines
and syllables, but not as to the rhymes, which may be
varied or repeated in accordance with the fancy of the
poet.
The whole art of the verse-writer is displayed in the
stanza, which presupposes a musical air, and is framed
with a view to being sung. The scheme is subject to
102 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
variation conformably to the nature of the contem-
plated accompaniment. In some cases there is a single
air for the entire stanza, without break or repetition.
Nearly all Arnaut Daniel's canzoni are constructed on
this principle, and Dante mentions his own poem, Al
poco giorno ed al gran cerchio d'ombra^ as an example
of the class. He terms the break the diesis' 1 or volta,
and tells us that this occurs at the point where one
melody passes into another. Those poems which
admit of a diesis are of three sorts, according to the
manner in which they are intended to be sung. At
least one of the melodies must be repeated, and the
repetition may take place before the diesis, after the
diesis, or both before and after. If the repetition takes
place before the diesis, the stanza is said to have pedes
or feet usually two; sometimes, though very rarely,
three. The rest of the stanza is then called the syrma
or tail. If the repetition takes place after the diesis, the
stanza is said to have versus, and zfrons or forehead.
These divisions are not necessarily equal, whether
as regards the number of the lines or of the syllables.
Theoretically a frons may exceed the versus in lines
and syllables, or it may have fewer of both, as in
Dante's canzone: Traggemi della mente Amor la
stiva* Similarly in his canzone : Amor, che muovi tna
virtu dal cielo 4 the pedes exceed the syrma in both
respects. On the other hand, the syrma surpasses
the pedes completely in the canzone : Donna pietosa e di
1 Sestina i.
2 In ii, 12, he calls it more correctly the dieresis.
3 This has been lost. * Canzone ix.
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 103
novella etate. 1 The variation arises from the length
and the number of the lines assigned to each division.
Thus the frons might consist of five heptasyllabic
lines, and each versus of two hendecasyllabic lines. It
is understood, of course, that there is an exact corre-
spondence between the versus, and this is also the case
between the pedes. Where a stanza is made up of pedes
and versus, there is no limit of number. There may
be several of each, and the number of versus need not
correspond with that of the pedes.
Hendecasyllabic, heptasyllabic, and pentasyllabic
lines are those which are most common; next to them
comes a line of three syllables. In " tragic " poetry,
as Dante has previously observed, the eleven-syllable
line is most esteemed, and some canzoni, including his
own ode Donne, cK avete intelletto d' amore? are
hendecasyllabic throughout. It is allowable to insert
one or more heptasyllabic lines in the frons or syrnta,
provided that the hendecasyllabic lines preponderate,
and the poem begins with one. Dante is speaking of
" tragic" composition, and certain exceptions to which
he alludes seem to him to have a tinge of "elegy."
He sanctions only one pentasyllabic line in a whole
stanza, or two at most, which must be in the pedes to
make them correspond; and he entirely excludes the
trisyllabic line, except as it forms part of a hendeca-
syllabic line divided by an inner rhyme, as in the
case of his canzone: Poscia ch? Amor del tutto m ha
lasciato ''
1 "Vita Nuova," xxiii. * Ibid. xix.
3 Canzone xix.
io 4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
13. RHYME
Rhyme is quite a subsidiary feature in the canzone,
and Dante proposes to defer a complete treatment of
the subject until he comes to deal with ballads and
sonnets. One kind of stanza has no rhyme-scheme,
and he cites as an instance that used in his canzone :
Al poco giorno. In another kind all the lines have the
same rhyme. Where there is a mixture of rhymes,
poets are accustomed to the fullest liberty. In certain
poems all the endings are not rhymed in the same
stanza, but where that is not the case the rhyme is
completed in other stanzas. Gotto of Mantua, of whose
compositions Dante speaks highly, invariably left one
line in a stanza unrhymed, and this he called the key.
It is permissible to treat not only one, but several
lines in this way. It is the general rule, however, that
no line should be without its fellowor fellows in a stanza.
Some verse-writers carry on the rhymes beyond
the diaeresis, whilst others introduce a fresh set in the
latter part of the stanza. Dante considers it an admir-
able plan, which is very commonly adopted, to rhyme
the last line of the former part with the first line of
the latter. As regards the frons or syrma, the order
of the rhymes is indifferent, except, of course, that
the order of the rhymes in the first stanza must be
maintained in the others. He recommends that poems
conclude with a couplet. In the case of the /</, if
one of the lines is left unrhymed in the former, the
rhyme is supplied in the corresponding line of the
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 105
latter; otherwise the rhymes of one pes may be re-
peated in the other, or not, at the poet's discretion,
provided that the same order is observed. If, for in-
stance, the first and last lines rhyme in the first pes,
the first and last lines in the second and succeeding
pedes must likewise rhyme. The same rule applies
to the verses except for the modification that may
be necessary for a couplet ending. Three faults are
to be avoided. One is excessive reiteration of the
same rhyme. Dante himself has exemplified this repe-
tition in his poem : Amor tu vedi ben che questa donna,
but in that instance he holds it to be justifiable on
artistic grounds. The same poem might have been
cited in illustration of the second fault, which is the
rhyming of a word with itself. The third fault is the
use of harsh rhymes, though they may be occasionally
employed for the sake of variety.
In the fourteenth chapter Dante enters upon the
consideration of the length of the stanza. This he
makes dependent on the subject-matter. Poems of a
pleasant or persuasive nature demand a longer stanza
than satirical pieces. At this point the treatise breaks
off. It is possible that Dante intended to include in
this section some remarks on the tornata, or con-
cluding stanza, which was sometimes of the same
construction as the preceding stanzas, but more often
not. In his reference to the couplet it might have
been expected that he would have stated that it is
commonly found in an irregular envoi. The first line
of the tornata is frequently not rhymed, especially
1 Sestina ii.
io6 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
when it ends with donna or donne it may be, in
order to emphasize those words; and the tornata,
when irregular, was briefer than the regular stanzas,
sometimes consisting of only three lines.
It will perhaps facilitate the understanding of
Dante's account of the stanza, if we present the three
types in tabular form, as is done in Mr. Chaytor's
excellent introduction of the " Troubadours of
Dante." l
ist line "j
2nd hPes.
3rd etc. J
ist line 1
2nd fPes.
3rd ,, etc. J
DIESIS c
st line 1
nd
rd .. etc. J
DIESIS OR VOLTA
ist line
2nd j-Syrma or Cauda
3rd etc.
II
Frons.
ist line
2nd
3rd etc.
DIESIS OR VOLTA
ist line 1
2nd V Versus.
3rd ,, etc. '
ist line
2nd ,, 1- Versus.
3rd etc.
Ill
)
)
line 1
*
.. ftC. I
DIESIS OR VOLTA
ist line
2nd I- res.
3rd etc.
ist line
2nd ,, H'es.
3rd ,, etc.
ist line
2nd
3rd
ist line
2nd
3rd
Versus.
r }
,, etc. *
st line \
nd VVersu
rd ,, etc. J
14. THE SESTINA
It seems desirable also to supplement Dante's un-
finished treatise, as far as is necessary in order that
P. XXX.
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 107
the metrical forms, other than the canzone, that we
find him to have employed, may be comprehended.
And first we may notice that Dante practically iden-
tifies the sestina, except as regards rhyme, with the
canzone proper, but the way the rhymes are arranged
makes it appear a different kind of verse. Actually, as
he says, there are no rhymes, but it is convenient to
use the term with respect to the words which supply
the place and fulfil the purpose of rhymes. The de-
scription, sestina, is due to the stanza consisting of six
lines, but one of Dante's compositions has twelve
lines, and is therefore a double sestina. Arnaut Daniel
made constant use of this form in Provencal, and
Dante introduced it into Italian a fact on which he
seems to have prided himself, although the innovation
was by no means felicitous.
In lieu of rhymes the same words are repeated in
different lines of the stanza on the principle of change-
ringing. The number of stanzas is regulated by the
number of " rhymes," and, apart from the tornata, the
position of each "rhyme " is never the same in any
two stanzas. In the case of the double sestina the
same " rhyme " is repeated in successive lines, thus
constituting an approach to a rhyme in the common
sense of the term, or what the Italians called a rima
equivoca. The principles of these two sorts of sestina
will be best understood by comparing the following
schemes with Sestina I and Sestina II.
SESTINA I
STANZAS
LINE
I
2
3
4
5
6
TORNATA
I
i
6
3
5
4
2
I
2
2
i
6
3
5
4
6
3
3
5
4
2
i
6
3
4
4
2
I
6
3
5
5
5
4
2
i
6
3
6
6
3
5
4
2
i
SESTINA II
STANZAS
LINE
I
2
3
4
5 j TORNATA
1
2
3
4
5 .
6
7
8
9
10
ii
12
I
5
4
3
2
I
2
i
5
4
3
5
I
5
4
3
2
4
I
5
4
3
2
3
3
2
I
5
4
2
i
5
4
3
2
i
S
4
3
2
4
3
2
i
5
4
3
2
i
5
i
5
4
3
2
5
4
3
2
I
5
4
3
2
I
108
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA " 109
In addition to what has been already stated, it is
essential to observe that in both schemes the last
" rhyme " of the preceding stanza is always the first of
the succeeding one, and that the "rhymes" of the
tornata, as far as it goes, are, after the first, those of
the last lines in order. The second scheme is ob-
viously far more intricate than the first, and that for
two reasons. Each line contains a series of " coup-
lets," mingled with single lines, and, while the
"rhymes" vary in every instance, the positions as-
signed to " couplets " and single lines respectively, are
unalterable. Then, again, each of the " rhymes " has
an " innings " in one stanza, in which it recurs more
frequently than any other rhyme. The total number
of lines is sixty-five, and each rhyme-word is used
thirteen times. The sestina was, therefore, a severe
test of mechanical ingenuity, particularly in the double
form.
15. THE BALLAD
The ballad was a dance-song, and began with the
ripresa or refrain. This was followed by two pedes and
a volta. Strictly speaking, the two pedes should corre-
spond as in the canzone, whilst the volta, as regards
its form, should reproduce the ripresa. Several of
Dante's ballads violate one or other of these prin-
ciples. In Ballad I ' the volta is irregular, since the
first and last lines do not rhyme as in the ripresa. It
is easy to see that this arose from the competition of
another principle that of concatenation. It will be
1 "Vita Nuova," 12.
no HANDBOOK TO DANTE
remarked that the last line of the second pes rhymes
with the first line of the volta, thus linking the two
divisions of the stanza. Ballad II, though shorter, is
similarly constructed. Ballad III is regular, as is also
Ballad IV, in which the first lines of the ripresa and
of each volta are unrhymed. Ballad V is constructed
like Ballads I and II, while Ballad VI is regular.
Ballad VII is extremely irregular both as to l\ie pedes
and a volta. Even here, however, the tripartite char-
acter of the stanza may be recognized, since the pedes,
though uneven, are contained by the same rhymes,
and there is a volta which, like the ripresa, consists of
four lines. But the volta has two heptasyllabic lines,
whereas the ripresa has one only. This circumstance
suggests a wholly different analysis of the ballad, and
on further inspection it will be noticed that the ripresa
corresponds with the first pes, and that the last ten lines
of the stanza compose two divisions, which are similar
in all respects, and are evidently intended as versus.
The first four lines, therefore, constitute the frons.
Thus we seem to have an example of a transposed
volta immediately following the ripresa, or we may
say that the ballad consists of two pedes and two versus
without a ripresa, except as the ripresa is identical
with the first pes. Ballad VIII is regular, if the
variation of a heptasyllabic line may be disregarded
in the first pes of each stanza. It may be remarked
that the first line of the volta rhymes with the second
of the first pes and the third of the second pes, while
the rhymes of the second and third lines do not vary.
Ballad IX resembles Ballads I, II, and V; and this
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" in
is likewise the case with Ballad X. Judging from the
apparent necessity of concatenation, and the fact that
Petrarch also uses the same type of ballad, all five
may be accounted regular, together with Ballads III,
IV, and VI. -This leaves Ballads VII and VIII, of
which the former is totally unlike the remainder,
while in the latter uniformity is sacrificed to rhythm.
All the ballads, without exception, exhibit internal
consistency, and all but one approximate to an iden-
tical pattern.
1 6. THE SONNET
The general structure of the sonnet is well known.
It is a short poem consisting as a rule of fourteen
lines, and divided into an octave and sextain. The
octave again is divided into quatrains, and the sextain
into tercets. The number and order of the rhymes in
the quatrains tend to be invariable ; l they run abba \
abba. In the tercets, on the other hand, there is con-
siderable diversity. Sometimes there are three, some-
times only two rhymes. Dante's sextains comprise six
different rhyme-schemes, viz.: cdccdc, cdcdcd, cdddcc,
cdetice, cdeede, and cdecde. The first is the order of the
rhymes in Dante's first sonnet, and there the conse-
cutive c rhymes may be due to the tendency to link
transitional lines. A similar purpose was served by alter-
nate rhymes, which are believed to have been originally
1 In early examples the octave has alternate rhymes; nine of
Dante's fifty-four sonnets (VIII, IX, X, XIV, XVI, XXIX,
XXXIII, LII, and LIII) are of this type.
ii2 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the rule in the octave as well as the sextain, the
sonnet, according to the most probable account, having
been compounded of popular strambotti identical in
form, but differing in length. The ballad also was of
popular origin, and Dante, it will be remembered,
associates the two as inferior types of poetry as com-
pared with the canzone. The third scheme is the
worst in every sense. Not only are the d rhymes
huddled together, but the sonnet ends in a couplet,
which is an unsuitable conclusion for a languishing
love-poem, besides falsifying the division of the sextain
into tercets. Strange to say, this form of the sonnet
is used freely by Dante, but, after some search, we
have met with but one instance in Petrarch, whose
favourite schemes are the second, fourth, and sixth in
the above list. The most artistic is undoubtedly the
fourth, since the couplet is avoided, and yet the tercets
are effectively linked by the quick return of the d
rhyme. Not many of Dante's sonnets are of this type.
In the " Vita Nuova," two sonnets II and IV
exceed the usual limit. Both consist of twenty lines,
six heptasyllabic lines being intercalated, two in each
quatrain and one in each tercet. Bartoli calls this
kind a sonetto rinterzato, but, according to Carducci's
definition, it is a sonetto doppio^ since it lacks an
extra hendecasyllabic line in the sextain. The ordinary
sonnet is composed of hendecasyllabic lines through-
out.
17. TERZA RIMA
The metre of the " Commedia " is ternario incatenato
that is to say, it consists of terzines or tercets, with
THE "DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA" 113
the rhymes so disposed (ababcbcdc) that there is no
necessary hreak before the end of the canto, which is
marked by a quatrain obtained by the omission of the
second and third lines of the terzines. Dante is sup-
posed to have adapted this metre from the four-line
stanza of the popular serventese, which was used
especially for moral and political themes, as well as
for enumerations. By its transformation into terzines
embodying the precious principle of concatenation, he
was able to extend the sentence from three to six,
nine, or twelve lines without violating any natural
pause.
1 8. POETS
LIST OF POETS CITED IN THE " DE VULGARI ELO-
QUENTIA," WITH APPROXIMATE DATES
North French
Thibaut, Count of Champagne (1201-1253), King of
Navarre (1234-1253).
Provencal
Peire d' Alvernhe, floruit 1150-1180.
Bertran de Born, b. cirdter 1140 d. circiter 1210.
Giraut de Bornelh,y?<?r?V 1165-1220.
Arnaut Daniel, floruit 1180-1200.
Folquet de Marselha,y?^/V 1180-1195.
Aimeric de Beknoi,j&naV 1200-1250.
Aimeric de Pegulhan, floruit 1205-1265.
i
ii 4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Italian
Guido delle Colonne, d. very old, 1287 (?) ( sici u an
Rinaldo d' Aquino, floruit 1227-1254. J
Guittone d' Arezzo, b. circiter 1220,
d. 1294.
Buonagiunta da Lucca, alive in 1296.
Gallo d'Agnello, Pisan, alive in 1275. Peninsular.
Mino Mocato (or Meo Macconi), of
Siena.
Gotto, of Mantua.
Ildebrandinus, of Padua, alive in 1292.
Guido Guinicelli, b. circiter 1 230, d. 1276.
Guido Ghisilieri, b. circiter 1244.
> riolognese.
Fabruzzo, floruit 1274-1294.
Onesto, rather later.
Brunette Latini, 1220-1294 or 5. Franco-Italian.
Guido Cavalcanti 1255-1300. \ dolcestil
Cmo da Pistoia, b. before 1270, d. 1336-7. \ nuovo .
Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321.
PART III
POLITICAL
CHAPTER I
THE "DE MONARCHIA "PRELIMINARY
i. EVOLUTION
IN previous sections we have had occasion to make
various allusions to Dante's political opinions. We
have seen that his family was Guelf, that his native
city was Guelf, and that he himself was originally of
that party. We have also observed that his views
gradually changed, and that, without becoming a
Ghibelline in the strictest sense of the word, he co-
operated with the Imperialists in attempts to overthrow
the Neri regime established at Florence. Del Lungo,
therefore, proposes to call him a guelfo imperialista.
This seems to be an unnecessary refinement, especially
when we consider that Dante eventually, and in no
long time, severed his connection with the allied
Ghibellines and Bianchi, and impartially denounced
both older factions.
To the public standard one the yellow lilies
Opposes, the other claims it for a party,
So that 'tis hard to say which sins the most.
Let, let the Ghibellines ply their handicraft
Beneath some other standard ; for this ever
111 follows he who it and justice parts.
117
nS HANDBOOK TO DANTE
And let not this new Charles e'er strike it down,
He and his Guelfs, but let him fear the talons
That from a nobler lion stripped the fell. l
This passage illustrates very well what Dante meant
when he said that he became a party by himself. He
was an Imperialist, but an Imperialist, to use his own
philosophic distinction, simpliciter, not in the corrupt,
degenerate Ghibelline sense, which allowed of a noble
principle being prostituted to base ends, local or
personal.
2. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE " DE MONARCHIA "
AND OTHER WRITINGS
The " Commedia " does not refer specifically to any
of Dante's earlier writings, though his use of the phrase
vita nuova in the " Purgatorio " is a near approach to
naming the work that bears that title. Witte interprets
lo bello stilo in the first canto of the " Inferno," ~ as an
allusion to the " De Monarchia," as written in Latin,
but the German scholar is certainly mistaken. Dante
speaks of the dolce stil nuovo. The "Commedia,"
however, contains various passages that may be looked
upon as echoes of the treatise. One of the most
striking is to be found in the sixteenth canto of the
" Purgatorio," 3 especially the lines:
Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place,
Behoved a king to have, who at the least
Of the true city should discern the tower
1 "Par." vi, 100-8. " 1. 85. 3 11. 84-112.
"DE MONARCHIA" PRELIMINARY 119
Rome that reformed the world accustomed was
Two suns to have, which one road and the other,
Of God and of the world made manifest.
It is in the " Paradise, '' however, that we meet with
the largest number of coincidences. Canto VI is en-
tirely occupied with a speech of Justinian, in which he
recounts the glorious history of the Roman people and
empire, as a sacred institution, much in the same way
as it is described in the second book of the "De
Monarchia," and, we may add, in the fourth book of
the " Convivio." Mention should be made also of the
manoeuvres or evolutions of the blessed spirits in the
heaven of Jupiter, of which an account is given in the
eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth cantos of the
"Paradiso." They, by their motions, first spell the
text: Diligite justitiam, qui judicatis terram! ' Then
they form themselves into a great " M," the initial
letter of Monarchia^ after which there is a rearrange-
ment, and some of the spirits compose the head and
neck of an eagle, whilst others first " bloom a lily on
the M," and subsequently complete the beautiful image
of the sacred bird. The lily is the fleur de Us, and is
emblematical of the French princes of Italy, who are
here taught the lesson of subordination to, and unity
with, the central and universal power of the temporal
monarch.
The eagle speaks,
And utters with its voice both / and My ,
When in conception it was We and Our.
Wisdom of Solomon, i, I.
120 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
This, and the perfect discipline manifested in the
harmonious groupings, furnish a picturesque comment-
ary on Dante's definition of concord in the " De
Monarchia." "Concord," he says, "is the uniform
motion of many wills, and all concord depends on
unity, which is in wills." l
Quite early in the treatise Dante lays it down that
monarchy or empire is necessary for the peace of the
world, and secures, rather than suppresses, individual
freedom. Thus, " the ensign of the world and of its
leaders" having become "silent in the blessed beak,'
Those living luminaries all
By far more luminous, did songs begin,
Lapsing and falling with my memory. 2
The substance of the first two books of the " De
Monarchia" is presented in the " Convivio," 3 only
more briefly and for another object, the intention
being to demonstrate that the Emperor's authority
does not extend to philosophic questions, such as the
nature of nobility. No mention is made of the " De
Monarchia," whence we may assume that the latter
work was not yet in existence, nor even contemplated,
since the " Convivio " alludes to " Vita Nuova " as al-
ready completed, 4 and the " De Vulgari Eloquentia "
as projected. 5 The account in the Italian treatise,
therefore, has the appearance of being a slight sketch
afterwards expanded in a more formal manner. On
the other hand it is conceivable that the paragraphs in
1 i, 15. " "Par." xx, 10-12. 3 iv, 5.
1 i, I- ' i, 5-
"UE MONARCHI A "PRELIMINARY 121
the "Convivio" are a summary of facts and conclu-
sions related in more detail in an earlier Latin writing.
In the " De Monarchia," Dante accepts a definition
of nobility, which he rejects and puts himself to some
trouble to disprove in " Convivio," just as in the
" Paradiso " he combats an explanation of the spots
in the moon received in the " Convivio." A similar
consideration leads to the conclusion that the "De
Monarchia " was written after Epistle V, since, as was
pointed out, Dante there admits the justice of the
comparison of Pope and Emperor to the greater and
lesser lights of the firmament, which in the " De
Monarchia " he denies. But there are allusions in
Book IV of the " Convivio," which show that it was
produced before 1310. On the whole, therefore, the
tendency of this evidence is to suggest that the " Con-
vivio" was the prior work, and that the " De Mon-
archia" was not composed until 1311 or later.
3. DATE OF THE "DE MONARCHIA"
That the nature of the relations between ecclesias-
tical and temporal authority was much in Dante's
thoughts about 1311 is proved by Epistle VI, 1 in
which we have a fourth statement of his political
opinions. Boccaccio, indeed, asserts as a fact that the
" De Monarchia " was written on the occasion of the
Emperor Henry's descent into Italy in 1311, but this
may have been mere conjecture. Witte maintains that
the treatise was composed before 1301, partly for the
1 P. 43-
122 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
reason that, unlike Dante's other works, it contains no
reference to his exile. The phrase expellunt fratres,
however, seems as if it might be a reproach.
Curiously enough, in a large majority of the MSS.,
there is inserted in I, 12, after the words a Deo colla-
tam, the remarkable statement sicut in Paradiso
Comediae jam dixi. Dante is speaking of freedom,
which he describes as the greatest gift bestowed by
God on man. In the fifth canto of the " Paradiso," 1
he affirms this proposition in the following terms:
The greatest gift that in his largess God
Creating made, and unto His own goodness
Nearest conformed, and that which He doth prize
Most highly is the freedom of the will,
Wherewith the creatures of intelligence
Both all, and only, were and are endowed.
The correspondence, therefore, is exact, and if we
could but be sure that the words in Paradiso Come-
diae are genuine, and not interpolated, we should be
constrained to assign the composition to the very close
of Dante's life. But the words do not appear in all the
MSS., nor in the early editions. Thus it is probable
that, as Witte suggests, they were inserted by " some
curious reader of the 'Paradiso'"; and they will be
sought in vain in the "Oxford Dante," which has
simply sicut dixi.
The reading in II, i (1. 27), has some bearing on the
date. Witte has et unico suo Romano Principi, the
" Oxford Dante " e t undo Romano Principi. The latter
is almost certainly right, the phrase being a resumption
1 11. 19-24.
"DE MONARCHIA" PRELIMINARY 123
of the quotation from Psalm II, with which the book
opens. But Dante would not have applied the term
" anointed " to Rudolph, Adolphus and Albert, whom,
in the fourth book of the " Convivio," he refuses to
acknowledge. He did recognize Henry VII; and, as
the advent of that monarch furnished an excellent
motive, it is likely that Boccaccio was correct as to the
date of the treatise.
4. SUBJECT
Dante treats of what was still a burning question.
It is true that he says in the " Purgatorio" l that one
sun has quenched the other, and that he calls Fred-
erick II in the " Convivio " * the last of the Roman
Emperors, but during Dante's lifetime neither he nor
the Ghibelline party abandoned hope, and the ex-
pedition of Henry VII, though abortive, must of ne-
cessity have had a quickening effect on the spirits of
the Imperialists, at least for a time. The " De Mon-
archia " is a logical exposition of the principles on
which the cause rested. The inquiry is threefold.
First, whether monarchy (or empire) is indispensable
to the well-being of the world. Secondly, whether the
Roman People has rightfully assumed the office of
monarchy. Thirdly, whether the authority of the
monarch depends immediately on God, or on some
vicar of God. To each branch of the inquiry Dante
devotes a separate book, and the object of the whole
is to show that, in temporal matters, the Emperor is
independent of the Pope.
1 xvi, 109. a iv, 3.
124 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
5. OBLIGATIONS
Dante states that he has undertaken a task not yet
attempted by any one, and this is doubtless true in the
sense that he was not aware of the existence of similar
treatises. Much, however, of his historical and geo-
graphical information, as well as certain of his ideas,
was derived from the " Ormista " (or "Ormesta") of
Orosius, a Spanish priest born at Tarragona about the
end of the fourth century, to whom he points in the
tenth canto of the " Paradiso " 1 :
Within that other little light is smiling
The advocate of the Christian centuries,
Out of whose rhetoric Augustine was furnished.
Towards the close of Book I Dante makes a good
deal of the fact that there was universal peace at the
time of Christ's nativity, and that our Lord was en-
rolled as a Roman citizen. Orosius is equally insistent
on these circumstances, which he regards as evidence
that Rome was specially favoured by God. It is from
the pages of Orosius that Dante proves that Mount
Atlas is in Africa, 2 and they are also the source of the
allusions to Ninus and Semiramis, 3 the achievements
of Vesoges, King of Egypt, and his failure to subdue
the Scythians, 4 and the fight between the Horatii and
Curatii, 5 though here Dante cites Livy in addition.
In ii, 9, Dante makes a strange slip. He states
that Alexander sent envoys demanding the submission
1 11. 118-20. 2 ii, 3. 3 ii, 9.
4 Ibid. ii. ii.
"DE MONARCHI A "PRELIMINARY 125
of the Romans, but died before receiving the answer,
and names Livy as his authority. Livy, however, de-
clares that Alexander was not known to the Romans
even by repute. 1 Dr. Toynbee has discovered the
origin of the story in the chronicle of Bishop Otto of
Friesing a work with which Dante seems to have
been acquainted, since Ennius's lines cited in II, 10,
though derived ultimately from Cicero, 2 are also
quoted by Otto. But Otto records that Alexander
died at Babylon, whereas Dante tells us that the great
conqueror met his end in Egypt. How are we to ac-
count for this? The truth is, Dante confused the
ancient Babylon with Old Cairo, which also went by
that name. In the fifth canto of the " Inferno," 3 he
says of Semiramis:
She held the land which now the Sultan rules,
i.e. one of the Mameluke Sultans. Dr. Toynbee aptly
compares Mandeville:
" The Lord of Babyloyne, where the sowdan dwell-
ethe comonly ... is not that great Babyloyne, where
he Dyversitie of Langages was first made . . . when
he grete Tour of Babel was begonnen to ben made."
1 ix, 18. 2 " De Officiis," i, 2. 3 1. 60.
CHAPTER II
THE " DE MONARCHIA "THE ARGUMENT
i. CHARACTER OF THE WORK
THE "De Monarchia" is remarkable for its strict
adherence to dialectic form. It is a model of
syllogistic reasoning with an elaborate system of
major and minor premises that is bound to excite awe
and admiration on account of its intricacy and pre-
cision. If men could be ruled by logic, and theories
were not upset by the defects inherent in human
nature, and revealed by history, there would be little
to urge against the ideal government delineated in
this treatise. It is, however, unpractical, because it
ignores the necessary consequences of extraordinary
individual capacity and the national sentiment, the
rivalry of races. Dante does not recognize that the
world advances by the hard path of competition
between persons and peoples, and that ambition, in
one form or another, is the mainspring of progress.
The adoption of a world-wide benevolent despotism
would soon reduce humanity to a stagnant civilization
comparable to that which has for ages prevailed in
China. While Dante pleads for universal peace as a
126
' DE MONARCHI A" THE ARGUMENT 127
consummation devoutly to be desired, he seems to
forget that the Roman People, which, as he shows at
considerable length, developed its power and demon-
strated its fitness for empire in a long course of wars
and conquests, palpably degenerated when the brac-
ing conditions of military service no longer called their
primitive virtues into exercise. Most people will sym-
pathize with his vigorous protest against the intrusion
of ecclesiastical rule into the secular domain; at the
same time, we have to remember that the interposition
of the spirituality often, in barbarous ages, secured
justice for defenceless and innocent persons who would
otherwise have succumbed to the brute force of feudal
superiors. The " De Monarchia " is so colourless, so
abstract in character, so wanting in the generally in-
evitable allusions to contemporary men and manners,
like the astonishing outburst in the " De Vulgari
Eloquentia," ' that, did we not possess Villani's and
Boccaccio's testimony, a doubt might have been par-
doned as to whether the treatise is authentic. But,
however much a writer may aim at scientific detach-
ment, he cannot escape from the conditions of his own
experience of life. Considered in this light, the " De
Monarchia " represents a revolt from the tyranny of
faction, the dishonest intrigues, the shameless bargains
of Popes and Cardinals, and the aggrandisement of
the Royal House of France. These monstrous growths
had affected Dante adversely, and the only remedy he
could find for them was the reanimation of the corpse
of Empire. The " De Monarchia " is, in fact, a glorified
1 i, 12.
128 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
pamphlet, redeemed from oblivion by the distinction
of its author and, more precariously, by the union of
imposing principles with close and cogent argu-
mentation.
2. NECESSITY OF EMPIRE
At the outset Dante defines temporal monarchy, or
empire, as a single princedom, to which all are sub-
ject, and which is exercised in and over things
measurable by time. He then distinguishes between
theoretical and practical sciences. In the former cate-
gory he places mathematics, etc. ; in the latter, politics,
as being concerned with action. Every operation
implies an end or object. What is the peculiar opera-
tion of mankind in general? It is the exercise of
reason, first, for the attainment of theoretical know-
ledge, and, secondly, for the application of that know-
ledge either in the field of action or in that of art or
manufacture. The end, as he tells us later, is happi-
ness. No individual is able to bring to bear the sum
total of intelligence, nor is any single community,
owing to the multiplicity of objects on which it is
expended. Just as the individual can best attain
perfection in prudence and wisdom when least dis-
turbed, so the most favourable condition for the entire
race in the performance of its work is universal peace.
That this condition may be realized there must be a
regulative intelligence, viz., an Emperor, who stands
in the same relation to mankind in general as a father
to a family. Individuals and individual states are
parts of a whole, and must be subordinated to a single
"DE MONARCHIA" THE ARGUMENT 129
prince. Mankind is part of a universal system of
which God is the comptroller, and the greater the
harmony that exists between the parts of which man-
kind is composed, the more perfect the correspondence
between mankind and the whole of which it is part.
God said " Let us make man in our own image." God
is one, and mankind can only become one by being
subject to one prince.
Mankind is the offspring of Heaven, which is regu-
lated in all its parts by a prime mover, namely, God.
A son behaves best when he follows in the footsteps of
a perfect father, and Heaven is " very perfect." There-
fore mankind is at its best when regulated by a single
prince. (The process of generation is described in
detail in the twenty-fifth canto of the " Purgatorio," l
and the birth of the human soul in the sixteenth
canto of the same cantica. 2 )
Where princes are of nearly equal power there may
be strife. In these circumstances there should be a
judge with a jurisdiction exceeding that of the litigants,
and this judge will be the monarch or emperor.
Justice is defined as a certain straightness or rule
which is most effective when it contains the least
admixture of its opposite. The desire to be just is not
sufficient; the power must be present also. The
monarch is not only the most desirous of justice, but
the best able to enforce it. There is nothing to excite
his avarice since his jurisdiction is bounded by the
ocean, whereas one single kingdom is coterminous
with another.
1 11. 34-76. 2 11. 85-90.
K
1 3 o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Just as avarice obscures justice, so love promotes
it. It seeks the good of man, and man's highest
interest is to live in peace. The monarch possesses
love or right affection in a higher degree than anybody
else, because it is natural to love a thing in proportion
to its nearness. Men are nearer to the monarch than
to other princes. They are his immediate care, and
he is the universal source of well-being. Other princes
are concerned with the happiness of the race only
through him.
Mankind is best off when most free. Freedom
springs from free-will one of those attributes that
differentiate men from brutes, which are the creatures
of appetite. Man, on the contrary, first perceives a
thing, then decides whether it is good or bad, and
finally pursifes or avoids it, according to the opinion
he has formed of it. The exercise of freedom is most
possible under a monarch, for then mankind exists for
its own sake. Other forms of government deflect from
the straight line, and some of them reduce men to
slavery. A monarch wishes for all men to be good.
In an ill-conducted state a good man may be a bad
citizen, but in well-governed communities a good man
and a good citizen are one and the same, and those
in authority exist for the weal of the people. As
regards the means, they may be masters, but, in re-
spect of the end, they are servants, and the monarch,
without doubt, is the servant of all.
He who is best ordered for ruling can best order
others. It is an error to suppose that a man can
educate others in morals and conduct by good words,
DE MONARCHIA" THE ARGUMENT 131
whilst himself indulging in bad actions. But what
security is there that a monarch is virtuous? The
answer lies in the circumstances. There is nothing, or
very little, to tempt his avarice, and it is avarice, more
than anything else, that corrupts justice and judge-
ment.
It is better that mankind should be ruled by one
supreme prince, since, if the same object can be
achieved by one instrument rather than several, the
employment of several instruments is superfluous, and
superfluity is abhorred by God and nature. A straight
road to one's end is better than a crooked one. For
all that, there must be a diversity of laws, customs,
tribunals, suited to local needs, and these cannot
emanate from the monarch. The monarch's function
is to rule mankind in conformity with laws common
to all, and lead it in the direction of peace.
Philosophy and Scripture both prove that unity is
the root of good, multeity of evil. Concord is the
uniform motion of several wills, and the root of con-
cord is the unity of wills. The human race in its best
state is a kind of concord, but this supposes one
dominant will for the ordering of others the will of a
single prince.
Since the fall of Adam there never was Universal
peace save when the world was subject to a monarch,
the Emperor Augustus, and there was a perfect
monarchy. St. Paul's phrase, " fullness of time," sig-
nifies that no ministry of our happiness lacked a
minister. From this imaginary picture of earthly
felicity Dante turns to upbraid the human race
i 3 2 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
fatal waywardness, and concludes a peroration of
great power and eloquence by recalling the language
of the psalmist: " Behold how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! "
3. THE ROMAN EMPIRE OF DIVINE APPOINTMENT
The second book commences with a quotation from
Psalm ii, which Dante applies to a state of things
obtaining in his own time, when kings and princes
agree only in resistance to the Lord and His anointed,
the Roman Emperor. Formerly, on a superficial view
of the subject, he had held that the Roman people
owed its position not to right, but to might. On
deeper study, he had been led to attribute its pre-
eminence to Divine Providence.
There are three stages in the production of a thing.
First, there must be the intention of the craftsman;
secondly, the tool; and, thirdly, the matter which is
shaped by art. So it is in nature. God is the artificer,
heaven (commonly termed nature) is the instrument,
and human society the matter. The two former are
perfect, and if there is any defect in the product, it
must be imputed to the matter. On the other hand,
any excellence must be set down to the agent and
instrument, matter being good only potentially. (This
account is contradicted in the thirteenth canto of the
" Paradiso," ' in which imperfection in the stellar in-
fluences is recognized. According to the latter version,
human bodies were created by the immediate action
' 11. 52-85.
"DE MONARCHIA " THE ARGUMENT 133
of God only in Christ and Adam; this, however, is
quite consistent with what is said here and in
Book I.)
Starting from these premises Dante defines right
as the Divine will or intention which is expressed in
exterior facts. That the Roman People assumed the
office of monarchy by right, not usurpation, is shown
in the form of a syllogism. It was meet that the
noblest people should be set over all others; the
Roman People was the noblest ; therefore it was meet
that the Roman People should be set over all others.
Aristotle defines nobility as virtue and ancient riches;
Juvenal, as virtue simply. A large part of the second
book is occupied with evidence adduced from mytho-
logy and history, the object being to establish the
minor premise that the Roman People was the noblest,
whether regard be had to its origin and antecedents,
or to its moral standards and conduct.
The Roman People obtained supremacy by success
in war, and that was a mark of Divine sanction. Other
powers Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia
had striven for universal dominion and failed, just
as competitors were beaten in the Olympian games.
By the judgement of God the palm in this supreme
contest fell to the Roman People, and therefore the
Roman People acquired empire rightfully. What is
gained by war is gained rightfully, because war is an
infallible method of ascertaining the Divine judgement.
Inequality in the strength of the parties does not
signify, for God aids the weaker side, as in the case
of David and Goliath. Victory being accepted as the
134 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
test of right, Dante has no difficulty in showing that
Rome, from the very beginning, extended her empire
by the sword.
Thus far, the contention has been based on rational
principles. Dante concludes with an appeal to the
principles of the Christian faith. In doing so, he can-
not resist the temptation of reproaching his opponents
with their inconsistency. Notwithstanding their pro-
fessed zeal, they look on whilst the poor of Christ are
defrauded. The revenues and even the lands of the
churches are appropriated, but the executor of justice
the Emperor is not admitted. There is justice in
the spoliation. The Church has made such an ill use
of her property that it is well it should return whence
it came. Reverting to the argument the fact that
Christ chose to be entered in the census list of the
Roman Empire, demonstrated the justice of the decree
of Augustus. The decree could not be just unless
issued by lawful authority, and if the Roman Empire
did not exist rightfully the sin of Adarn was not
punished. Punishment is not suffering merely, but
suffering inflicted by one possessing the right of
punishment. In this case a regular judge was a judge
who had jurisdiction over all mankind, since all man-
kind was punished in Christ's flesh. Tiberius, whose
vicar was Pilate, would not have had jurisdiction over
all mankind if the Roman Empire had not existed
rightfully. It was for this reason that Herod, know-
ing not what he did, delivered Christ to Pilate,
Herod's jurisdiction being confined to a single
kingdom.
"DE MONARCHI A "THE ARGUMENT 135
4. PAPAL PRETENSIONS BASELESS
Like the second, the third book begins with a quo-
tation from Holy Writ. This time the text is taken
from Daniel, vi, 22 : " He hath shut the lions' mouths,
and they have not hurt me, forasmuch as before him
righteousness hath been found in me." This is followed
by a period of extreme eloquence, in which Dante
assumes the position of a protagonist of the truth.
The questions discussed in the previous books were
largely academic; he now enters the arena of prac-
tical politics, and he seems to have felt that, in
controverting the pretensions of the Papal See to
temporal supremacy, he incurred some personal
danger. He divides his opponents into three classes :
the Pope and the clergy, influenced by religious zeal ;
certain others, calling themselves sons of the Church,
who, actuated by base motives, gainsay the principles
expounded in all three books of the treatise; and the
Decretalists, who attach excessive importance to eccle-
siastical traditions.
One of the arguments commonly adduced in support
of Papal supremacy was derived from the story of
creation, when God made two lights, "the greater
to rule the day, and the lesser to rule the night." In
reply Dante cites St. Augustine to the effect that not all
passages of Scripture are susceptible of allegorical as
well as literal interpretation. Sun and moon were
created before the fall of man, and ecclesiastical and
civil governments were designed as remedies against
136 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
sin. Thus Moses could not possibly have intended
the words to be construed in this sense.
Saul was deposed by Samuel, but Samuel did not
do that on his own authority as God's vicar. He
merely served as a messenger charged with the Lord's
command. The Magi's offerings of frankincense and
gold did indeed signify spiritual and temporal autho-
rity, but God and the vicar of God are not equivalent.
As for Christ's saying to Peter, " Whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven," it is
pointed out that in a later chapter of St. Matthew's
Gospel, and also in St. John's Gospel, the speech is
addressed to all the Apostles. Moreover, it has to be
considered in relation to the context. Christ had just
said, " I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven," and the term "whatsoever" is limited in
its application by this reference. Finally, with regard
to Peter's statement, " Behold, there are two swords
here," which some understand of two kinds of rule, it
is merely evidence of the Apostle's impulsiveness.
(The reader may advantageously compare the chapter
on "The Misinterpretation of Scripture," in Hobbes's
" Leviathan," Part IV.)
Dante then deals with Constantine's donation. He
asserts that it was possible neither for Constantine to
alienate, nor for the Church to receive, the dignity of
Empire. Church and Empire rest on different founda-
tions. The foundation of the Church is Christ, that
of the Empire human law. It is contrary to human law
that the Empire should act suicidally. The emperor,
as such, could not make a donation which implied a
"DE MONARCHIA"-THE ARGUMENT 137
diminution of his jurisdiction, for, if one emperor
might do this, another might, and so it would come to
pass that the jurisdiction would be destroyed. The
Church, too, is prohibited by its Founder from re-
ceiving temporal gifts. God's Vicar may not possess
property; he can only act as steward of the fruits of
property on behalf of the Church, and for the good of
Christ's poor.
The argument from history : Charlemagne received
his crown from Pope Hadrian, but usurpation does
not constitute right. If so, it could be proved that the
authority of the Church depended on the Emperor,
Otto having restored Pope Leo and deposed Bene-
dict, whom he banished to Saxony. The argument
from philosophy: All the members of a class are
reducible to some one member as standard. All men
are of one class; the Pope cannot be reduced to any
other member, and therefore the Emperor must be
reduced to the Pope. Reply : It is one thing to be a
man, and another thing to be a pope, just as it is one
thing to be a man, and another thing to be a father or
master. In so far as they are men, both Pope and
Emperor are reducible to the best man, whoever he
may be, as the measure and pattern of all others. In
relation to their offices they are entirely distinct. The
Pope is not Emperor, and the Emperor is not Pope.
Hence they are reduced to that in which they admit
of being united. Papacy and Empire are relative
forms of superiority; they must be reduced to abso-
lute superiority. This will be God or some being
lower than God, of whom superiority is the differentia.
138 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Having disposed of the errors of others, Dante gives
his own views of this third question. He holds that
the authority of the Empire cannot be derived from
that of the Church, because the former was in full exer-
cise when the Church either did not exist or was not
putting forth its power. What is the point of St. Paul's
appealing to Caesar? Again, if Constantine had no
authority over the Church, he could not lawfully
assign to her portions of his imperial patrimony.
If the Church had the power of giving authority to
the Roman Empire, that power must have been de-
rived from God, from itself, from some emperor, or
from the universal assent of mortals or of the majority
of mortals. From none of these sources can such
power have been derived. Alike under the Old Dis-
pensation and the New the priests were set apart from
secular cares. The Church could not impart to herself
what was not hers. The Emperor was debarred for the
reasons already stated, while all the inhabitants of
Asia and Africa, together with the majority of Euro-
peans, detested the principle of Papal supremacy. It
is contrary to the nature of the Church, and cannot be
included amongst her powers. Christ said to Peter,
" Follow me "; He also said, " My Kingdom is not of
this world."
Man alone occupies a position midway between
things corruptible and incorruptible, and shares the
nature of both. He is ordained to a twofold end
temporal happiness and eternal felicity. To attain the
former, he must employ the teachings of philosophy;
to arrive at the latter, spiritual teachings, acting in
"DE MONARCHIA" THE ARGUMENT 139
obedience to the three theological virtues, Faith,
Hope, and Charity. It is the function of the Supreme
Pontiff to conduct mankind to life eternal according to
revelation ; that of the Emperor to conduct it, by the
light of philosophy, to temporal happiness, by repress-
ing greed and making it possible for men to live in
peace and freedom. God chooses the Emperor; the
so-called Electors merely proclaim Divine providence.
If they disagree, it is because all or some of them are
so blinded by self-interest as not to discern the face of
Divine dispensation.
Imperial authority, then, the temporal authority of
the monarch, is immediately derived from the source
of all authority. But it does not follow that the
Roman Prince is in no wise subject to the Roman
Pontiff, since mortal happiness is ordained to ever-
lasting felicity. Therefore let Caesar observe toward
Peter the reverence that a first-born son ought to show
to his father.
5. POSTSCRIPT
Among Dante's minor works will be found in the
Oxford edition a treatise entitled " Quaestio de Aqua
et Terra." There are no early MSS. of this treatise, and
partly for that reason it has been rejected by most
Dantists as a sixteenth-century forgery. Rather re-
cently, Dr. Moore,' the editor of the "Oxford Dante,"
has championed its authenticity, and now eminent
scholars either accept it or hold judgement in suspense.
1 " Studies," pp. 303-74.
i 4 o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Dr. Paget Toynbee concurs with his fellow Oxonian
in deeming it a genuine work of Dante, only corrupt
in its present form. Certainly, any one fresh from the
reading of Dante's other writings must be struck with
the general resemblance of thought and style, and it
is hard to believe that a mere imitator can have been
so steeped in Dante's characteristics as to produce
such an impression. For example, we have just quitted
the " De Monarchia," totally unlikely as regards sub-
ject, and yet in Section XIII of the "Quaestio de
Aqua et Terra," we meet with a repetition of the
argument that what can be done by means of one
instrument is better so accomplished than by means
of several.
The treatise is not strikingly original many of its
features had already appeared in Brunetto Latini's
"Tresor." It was therefore in no way an important
contribution to the scientific knowledge of the age,
and Scartazzini's wild contention that it is too much
in advance of the time to be genuine may be easily
disproved. He urges that the connection between
the moon and the ebb and flow of the tide cannot
have been known to Dante, whereas it was known to
Pliny, not to mention Albertus Magnus and Vincent
de Beauvais, mediaeval philosophers, to whom Dante
was indebted for much of his information. And a
reference to the sixteenth canto of the " Paradiso "
(11. 82-3) shows conclusively that he did know it.
Mediaeval notions of cosmography, however, differ
so fundamentally from the discoveries of modern
science that the treatise cannot be properly under-
"DE MONARCHIA " THE ARGUMENT 141
stood without some initiation into that interesting
subject, to which attention will be paid later.
The origin of the work was a disputation at Mantua
as to whether water in any quantity is anywhere higher
than the uncovered portion of the earth. The topic
was afterwards resumed in the chapel of St. Helena
at Verona on aoth January, 1320, and Dante here
presents the arguments pro and con. One of those in
proof that the sea is higher than the land is that
sailors can see the land from the mast when it is in-
visible on deck. Dante, in reply, attributes this effect
to the interruption of the view caused by the convexity
of the earth. Another argument is that water flows
down from mountains in the beds of rivers. Dante's
answer is that water rising in elevated places is carried
thither in the form of vapour. If water were higher than
land the world would be elliptical, like the moon, or the
sea would somewhere form a hump on the circumfer-
ence. Dante maintains that the world is a perfect
sphere, except for a hump that is formed not by the
sea, but by the land. The emergence of land from
the face of the deep is ascribed to the influence of
the fixed stars, 1 but Dante recognizes that there is a
difficulty. As the heaven of the fixed stars is circular,
the dry land ought also to be circular, which it is not.
Dante can only account for this discrepancy by sup-
posing deficiency of material. Realizing,* however,
that this will inevitably lead to a succession of such
questions the solution of which will be difficult, if not
impossible, he falls back on various texts which con-
1 Cf. " Par." ii, 64.
142 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
vict persons of a too inquiring turn of mind of pre-
sumption.
The " Quaestio de Aqua et Terra " is full of interest
as marking the limitations of so great a man as Dante
in regard to matters of which his authorities could
furnish no explanation based on sound principles. It
is true that ultimately all knowledge comes to us
through the medium of the senses, but the axiom that
nothing is true that contradicts sense, applied in so
inelastic a manner as we find here, was the chief bar
to progress in what he terms "speculation." Since
Dante agrees that water is a nobler element than
earth, and that it is permissible to make certain deduc-
tions from this superiority, it is evident that another
obstacle was a confusion of physics with ethics or
politics.
BOOK II
INNER LIFE AND ITALIAN WRITINGS
PART I
MORAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL
T
CHAPTER I
THE "VITA NUOVA"
i. TITLE
HE story of Dante's inner life is begun in the
"Vita Nuova," continued in the "Convivio,"
and completed in the "Commedia," and thus the
three works together have been regarded as a trilogy.
In addition to these longer writings there is a number
of canzoni, ballads, and sonnets, which will be best
discussed after the " Vita Nuova."
The title " La Vita Nuova " is capable of two-fold
interpretation according to the meaning attached to
the word nuova. It may refer to the poet's youth.
To this explanation it has been objected that the
period of youth does not commence at the age of
nine, and that Dante nowhere employs the Latin
word novus in the sense of " young." But Dante was
not compelled to recount the whole of his youthful
experiences; he even apologizes for narrating as many
of them as he does. If, too, he does not use the
Latin word novus with the signification of young, he
certainly employs the Italian words nuovo and novello
in that sense. 1 The subject of the book is youthful
1 Cf. Canzone ii, I ("Vita Nuova"), Ballad vi, I.
L
146 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
emotion, and that being so, we may well anticipate a
relationship between subject and title. The opinion
that the word nuova connotes, if it does not denote,
youth is borne out by what is said elsewhere as to the
distinctive qualities of the "Vita Nuova" and the
" Convivio," which are attributed to the different ages
at which they were written. 1 The former is as redolent
of youth as the latter of maturity.
The other explanation regards nuova as signifying
"regenerate," and for this also much is to be said.
St. Paul, /'/ gran vasello del spirito santo, in whose
epistles, as is shown by numerous citations, Dante
was profoundly versed, speaks of " newness of life."
This interpretation is in harmony with the language
used in xi, Canzone I, and Sonnet XI ; and in the
thirtieth canto of the "Purgatorio" (1. 115), Beatrice
refers to the vita nuova as a time of moral rectitude,
in which Dante was supported by her eyes, before he
yielded to temptation. In an ethical or spiritual sense
the expression vita nuova does not mean the life
following reformation or conversion, such as is adum-
brated towards the close of the book, but rather a
quickening or consciousness of the better nature that
the soul has brought with it from God.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
The two senses, therefore, do not seem to us mutu-
ally exclusive. They are reconciled in the familiar
phrase " the age of innocence." Dante was only eight
when he first fell in love.
1 "Convivio," i, i.
THE " VITA NUOVA" 147
2. DATE
The date of the "Vita Nuova" is approximately
determined by the testimony of Dante himself. He
informs us that it was written "at the entrance of his
gioventute." In the "Vita Nuova," he uses the similar
term gioventudine in the most general sense of youth,
but this is not the sense in which gioventute is em-
ployed in the "Convivio," in which he divides human
life into four ages, and defines gioventute as the period
extending from a man's twenty-fifth to his forty-fifth
year. 1 According to this reckoning the " Vita Nuova "
was written in 1290 or 1291. This is consistent with
the indications of time that we find in the book itself.
Thus we learn that Beatrice died on gth June (or on
the night of 8th June), 1290; that on the anniversary
of her death he was engaged in drawing angels when
he was interrupted by the arrival of certain gentlemen ;
that some time afterwards he beheld a young and
beautiful lady gazing pitifully at him from a window
and formed an attachment to her; that this attach-
ment lasted "certain days," and that then he had a
vision of Beatrice, which caused him to repent of this
passion and resume his former devotion. All this may
have happened before the end of the year 1291, and
Dante may have signalized his repentance by inditing
the "Vita Nuova."
On the whole, we do not feel justified in sett.ng
aside Dante's plain statement respecting the time at
which the " Vita Nuova " was composed, but there
1 "Conv." iv, 24.
i 4 8 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
are difficulties in the way, and the question is greatly
complicated by the sophistries in the " Convivio "
which contains a new version of the later incidents. 1
Dante's second attachment is described as commenc-
ing between two and three years after the death of
Beatrice, and as not being completely established for
another thirty months or more. How long it continued
is not recorded, but, judging from the period of in-
cubation, the term of Dante's second love, his defec-
tion from Beatrice, might be measured by years, not,
as in the " Vita Nuova," by days. Finally, we have to
take account of the season of contrition mentioned in
the "Vita Nuova," which preceded its composition,
and may also have been of some duration. Basing our
calculations on this evidence, the " Vita Nuova " may
have been written in the year of Jubilee 1300. By
that time Dante would no longer have been at the
entrance of his gioventute; he would have been half
through it nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.
Which of the two versions is to be preferred, or are
there any means of reconciling them ? Before we can
answer these questions, we must seek to determine
which of the two books is the more historical. The
"Convivio" professes to be the more solid produc-
tion, and, wherein it differs from the earlier work, to
present the literal truth, the prose of the matter. But it
must not be forgotten that the " Convivio " was written
for a purpose and in a style that inevitably raise sus-
picions of disingenuousness. On the other hand, the
"Vita Nuova," though incomparably more simple, is
1 H, 13-
THE "VITA NUOVA" 149
not free from traces of artificiality. It would seem
that both in the "Vita Nuova" and the "Convivio"
Dante introduces as much of the fictitious element as
suits his immediate purpose. In the former, where the
rival of Beatrice is a woman, he has clearly an interest
in not prolonging his infidelity beyond certain days;
in the latter, where that rival represents a course of
severe study, he has not less clearly an interest in ex-
tending the term to months and even years. From an
historical or biographical standpoint there is appar-
ently little to choose between the two works, if we
admit a groundwork of facts. Those who hold that
the "Vita Nuova" is, in the main, "a cunningly de-
vised fable " will, of course, find it easy to accept this
proposition.
Believers in the humanity of Beatrice will naturally
lean to the "Vita Nuova" as the more primitive and
also the more complete relation. The earlier work
overlaps its successor at each end, and for this reason
Carducci styles the " Convivio " an " episode " of the
" Vita Nuova." In other words, the " Vita Nuova "
enshrines a spiritual phase posterior to that of which
the " Convivio " is the memorial. In XL Beatrice
regains her lost ascendancy when? Upon this point
Dante vouchsafes no definite information, but the
final chapters of the book are saturated with the twin
conceptions of pilgrimage and vision. Dante beholds
certain pilgrims journeying to Rome to gaze on the
Veronica, and straightway he is inspired to write two
sonnets, in one of which the last in the "Vita
Nuova " he likens the sigh that escapes him to a
150 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
pilgrim-spirit that passes to highest heaven, and there
sees Beatrice.
In the " Oxford Dante," as in other recent edi-
tions, va is substituted in XLI for andava and the
parenthesis in which this emendation has been made
is now interpreted as alluding to the time of the
year January or Easter when the Veronica was ex-
hibited, as was done annually. The other reading
would point to some special occasion, and this is con-
jectured to have been the Jubilee of 1300, of which
Villani writes: "For the consolation of the Christian
pilgrims every Friday, or solemn day of festival, the
Veronica or the napkin of Christ was displayed in
San Piero. Wherefore a great part of the Christians
who were then alive made the said pilgrimage, both
women and men, from diverse and distant countries,
both near and far." 1
Even if we read va it is by no means certain that
Dante was not thinking of this memorable time when
the immense concourse of pilgrims drawn together
from all parts of Christendom was calculated to beget
reflection. Dante does, in fact, pause in his narrative
and goes out of his way to discriminate between
different sorts of pilgrims. Evidently the topic seemed
interesting and important, but if the pilgrimage was
ordinary, and the "Vita Nuova" was finished in
1291, the digression seems somewhat odd in that
work, though it is much what we should expect in the
" Convivio," in which Dante enters with infinite zest
and considerable particularity into all manner of lore.
1 viii, 36.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 151
The pilgrimage, it appears to us, was not ordinary.
It coincided with, and virtually suggested, the plan of
writing the " Commedia," the fundamental idea of
which is a pilgrimage to the City of God, the heavenly
Jerusalem. Throughout the poem Dante consistently
adheres to the year 1300 as the date of the vision,
later events being represented as still future. Dante's
conversion, his reunion with Beatrice, took place in
the same year, since they form part of the action of
the poem, and the meeting between the lovers after a
severance of ten years is touchingly depicted in the
thirtieth and thirty-first cantos of the " Purgatorio."
If this recovery, this reconciliation, occurs in 1300 in
the " Commedia," it is reasonable, and almost neces-
sary, to believe that the passage in the " Vita Nuova "
was written not earlier than that year.
Once accept this conclusion, and the rest is easy.
Dante is converted he returns to Beatrice. He is
then impressed with the spectacle of pilgrims faring to
the sight of the " blessed image." Then a sigh, a pil-
grim thought wings its flight to the vision of the glori-
fied lady. But the vision is not perfect, and Dante
fails to comprehend it. He is not yet fully enlightened.
A perfect, a wondrous, vision succeeds, which he does
comprehend, but for its adequate setting forth time
and trouble are needed. If the rival was indeed philo-
sophy, Dante must have meant not so much the
studies of which there is such ample evidence in the
" Convivio," as the "poetic pains" to be lavished on
the " Commedia," which has an apparatus of learning
not less imposing than that of the prose work, while
152 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the poem made far heavier demands in the way of
imaginative power and mechanical execution.
Scartazzini denies the identity of the concluding
vision of the "Vita Nuova" with that of the "Corn-
media," arguing that it was one of those inspirations
got by the poet from Beatrice that produced no
lasting effect. This is to run counter to the signifi-
cance of Dante's language as well as to ignore the
character of the vision, in so far as it can be inferred
from the context.
The notion of a pilgrimage not only to the celestial
regions, but also to the abode of lost souls, had already
germinated in Dante's mind at the date of the " Vita
Nuova." In the second stanza of Canzone I, God is
made to say, with reference to Beatrice, in addressing
the saints and angels :
" My beloved, suffer now in peace that your hope
be, whilst it please me, there where is one that looks
to lose her, and shall say to the evil-born in Hell : ' I
saw the hope of the blessed.' "
Scartazzini concedes that the concluding sections of
the " Vita Nuova " may have been a later addition.
If so, Dante may have retouched at the same time
earlier portions of the work so as to make them antici-
patory of his final resolution. On this assumption we
have a parallel case to the prophecies sown through
the " Commedia " prophecies after the events. It is
true that the saying " I saw the hope of the blessed "
is not to be found in the " Inferno," but no one imag-
ines that the " Vita Nuova " was completed after the
first cantica of the "Commedia." It may, however,
THE "VITA NUOVA" 153
and probably did, assume its present shape when
Dante was on the threshold of his great undertaking,
and then, it would seem, the second stanza of Can-
zone I was interpolated, or the entire poem recast.
There are other reasons for suspecting that the
"Vita Nuova" was completed and revised in 1300.
Bartoli ' is much perplexed by Dante's allusions to
Guido Cavalcanti, who died 2;th or 28th August, 1300,
and confesses himself unable to determine whether
they were written during the lifetime or after the death
of the poet's principal friend. As an escape from the
difficulty he suggests tentatively that Dante retouched
his book. These allusions, be it observed, occur not
at the close, but in the body, of the work. Moreover,
those digressions on popular poetry, the personification
of love, and the different classes of pilgrims are not
consonant with a treatment which Dante describes as
" fervid and passionate." They smack of the schools,
and seem to belong to the period that gave birth to
the "Convivio." The same remark applies to the
amazing chronological references, which imply abstruse
study, and are the first fruits of the harvest more fully
garnered in the later works.
On the other hand, the "Vita Nuova" contains
numerous passages which appear much more likely to
have been penned in the fever of youth than at a time
when Dante was a married man and a responsible and
prominent citizen. Not only so, but we have his
own statement that the book was written "at the en-
trance of hisgioven/ute." These considerations prevent
1 iv, 21 1-2.
i S 4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
us from yielding to the temptation, undoubtedly strong,
of referring the entire work, with the exception of most
of the poems, to the year 1300.
What happened may have been this. Soon after the
anniversary of Beatrice's death Dante chose out cer-
tain of his lyrics and strung them together with simple
explanations in prose. Years elapsed, during which
his mind was occupied with other matters, war, matri-
mony, study, politics, and so forth, and he developed
into what is termed a man of the world. In 1300 he
became disillusioned, disgusted with life, and returned
to the point of view associated with his love for Bea-
trice. He began to contemplate the "Commedia."
By way of preparation he revised the " Vita Nuova,"
which experienced the reflex influence of his later
studies, was brought into line with them, and partially
reconstructed.
3. DEDICATION
The "Vita Nuova " is preceded by no formal dedica-
tion that has come down to us, and it is not until we
arrive at xxxi that we meet with an intimation that
it was addressed to any one in particular. There,
however, we find Dante saying: "And I know that
my first friend, to whom I write this, had a like inten-
tion." His first friend was Guido Cavalcanti, as is
shown by the allusions in xxiv. Dante, it will be
remarked, says " had" not "has"; and similarly in
xxv, in referring to Cavalcanti, he uses the past
tense " and this my first friend and I well knew of
those who rhyme thus stupidly." On the other hand,
THE "VITA NUOVA" 155
in in, he employs the present tense" whom I call
the first of my friends " and in the sentence above
quoted, he says " to whom I write this."
This evidence is not exactly contradictory, but it is
woefully inconclusive, since the statements are equally
intelligible, whether we assume Cavalcanti to have
been alive or dead. Thus, in the last instance, Bartoli
suggests that the "Vita Nuova" is inscribed to Guide's
memory; and that when Dante tells us that he calls
Cavalcanti the first of his friends, this may be simply
an acknowledgement of what the elder poet had
been to him. It is quite possible that he may allude
to the encouragement received from Cavalcanti on the
occasion of his first essay in poetry, and that prime
may signify first in point of time. Or, again, Dante
may be stating a rule consistently observed in the
"Vita Nuova," where he always speaks of Cavalcanti in
those terms. In either case, the past tense would
naturally have been employed in speaking of old days
and former talks. A candid perusal of xxiv would
lead us rather to judge that Cavalcanti was not then
alive, as the same motives that caused Dante to sup-
press certain expressions, in which Guido figured in
the secondary character of a precursor, would have
operated still, were that friend yet living. At the same
time it does not seem probable that Dante dedicated
the book to Guide's memory. It is more likely that
he addressed it to him in an earlier immature form,
of which the clause " to whom I write this " is a trace,
and that, in retouching or recasting the work, he
omitted to alter scrivo to scrissi.
i 5 6 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
4. METHOD
The method of the work, which Pio Rajna considers
to have been suggested by the razos and biographies
of the troubadours, is well described by Boccaccio,
who states that Dante collected " certain little works,
such as sonnets and canzoni, which he had made at
sundry times previously in rhyme, writing above each
separately, and in order, the causes that had moved
him to make them, and placing after the poems the
divisions of the preceding works."
In other words we have here a series of poems pur-
porting to have been written at critical moments in
Dante's psychological history, and arranged in chrono-
logical sequence. Each of these poems is intro-
duced by a prose preface that describes its setting;
and to each is subjoined an analysis in which Dante
lays bare the workings of his mind, the hidden springs
of the poem, and brings out its full import. It is
thus, at any rate, that the work sets out, but Dante fails
to maintain the order. In the earlier sections the
analysis follows the poem; in the later it is appended
to the preface. Here and there, in both the earlier
and the later sections, it is omitted as not being
required for the comprehension of the poem. The
dividing line is xxvin, which contains the fragment
of a canzone. Being imperfect, this could not be sub-
jected conveniently to an anatomical process; and
the original rule, once broken, was not afterwards
resumed in the same form. The " Vita Nuova " includes
several chapters wholly in prose, which are either
THE "VITA NUOVA" 157
expansions of the narrative, or elucidate certain
difficulties involved in the style or subject.
Dante himself furnishes no scheme of the work in
its larger aspects, but eminent authorities Carducci,
D'Ancona, Witte, Cassini, etc. are in substantial
accord as to the main divisions into which it is
naturally resolved. Excluding the proem, there are
five parts. Part I treats of love in the romantic sense,
and the poet's sedulous efforts to disguise his attach-
ment; he is under the spell of the physical charms
of his lady ( i-xvn, 1274-1287). Part II is more
mystic; thoughts of love are wedded to premonitions
of death and eternity ( xviii-xxvm, 1287-1290).
Part III records the sense of desolation consequent
on the death of his lady ( xxix-xxxv, 1290-1).
Part IV relates the episode of the gentle lady, whose
sympathy awakens his affection ( xxxvi-xxxix,
1291, 1291-3 or 1300). Part V tells of a vision of
Beatrice in all her youthful beauty, and describes
Dante's repentance, and his high resolve to do honour
to her memory ( XL-XLIII, 1291, 1294, or 1300).
5. THE NARRATIVE
The narrative is uncommonly simple. Dante begins
by stating that before he had quite completed his
ninth year he fell in love with a girl a few months
younger. Nine years to a day from that occasion he
fell in love with her for the second time, and he
marked the event by sending an original sonnet to all
the most famous poets then alive, evoking various
158 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
replies. The vehemence of his emotions produced
bad effects on his health, and his friends became
solicitous about him, but he steadfastly refused to
disclose his secret. It so happened that, being at
church, he observed a lady sitting in a direct line
between himself and Beatrice, who returned his gaze
a fact remarked by many others. Dante then resolved
to make use of her as a screen; and, in order to aid
the deception, addressed a number of poems to her.
Her departure from Florence was a great embarrass-
ment to Dante, who wrote a mournful ditty on the
subject, though in reality he was thinking of his
sad case in relation to Beatrice. Then a young lady,
a friend of Beatrice, died, and Dame indited two
sonnets, in which he lamented her untimely fate, and
upbraided "villain Death."
Some days later it fell to his lot to travel in the
direction of the city in which the " lady of defence "
had taken up her abode. He was full of regrets at
leaving the lovely land in which Beatrice dwelt, and
his thoughts kept reverting to the past. Hence, al-
though in the midst of a large company, he sighed
and sighed again. In the course of this journey it
came to his knowledge that the "lady of defence"
was not to return to Florence, and he there and then
decided on a substitute a gentlewoman of the city,
who was well known to him. The experiment proved
disastrous. Dante played his part so thoroughly that a
scandal arose. Beatrice withheld her salute, and the
object of his attentions was annoyed. In these circum-
stances Dante deemed it his best policy to make what
THE "VITA NUOVA" 159
may be termed an oblique avowal. He imagined that
Beatrice had already an inkling of the true state of the
case, and that an assurance of his love and fidelity
would rectify matters. He therefore indited a ballad
in this sense, and, it must be supposed, contrived by
some means that it should come into her hands, but
he does not say this only that he wrote it. The
ballad is given in the "Vita Nuova," and it will be
noticed that in it Beatrice is not mentioned by name.
Possibly it may have been put into general circulation,
in the hope that Beatrice might see it and conjecture
that she was the lady intended. Not unnaturally Dante
was beginning to have his doubts regarding the
blessedness of love.
Soon after he received a visit from a kindly-disposed
person, who persuaded him to accompany him to a
brilliant wedding-feast. He was about to place himself
at the service of the ladies, when he was suddenly
overcome by a strange trembling, and, raising his
eyes to see if anybody noticed it, beheld Beatrice.
Thereupon he fell into a swoon, which provoked the
mirth of the fair spectators Beatrice amongst the
rest; and his well-meaning acquaintance came forward
and drew him away. Dante was a puzzle to himself.
If, he asked himself, Beatrice only mocked his pain,
why should he desire to see her? The ladies were
equally perplexed and begged him to tell them what
he wanted, as he could not support her presence.
Dante's reply was that all he had wanted was her
greeting. In that all his happiness had lain, and it
had been the end and aim of all his desires. Now,
160 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
however, love had placed all his happiness in some-
thing that could not be taken from him the praise of
his lady. From that hour Dante resolved to devote
himself to this one theme, and the first fruits of this
resolution was that magnificent ode, " Ladies that
have intelligence of love."
Dante now began to be famous, and a friend having
consulted him, as an authority, about the nature of
love, he responded in a philosophic sonnet, in which
he confirmed Guinicelli's interpretation of the mystery
in general. This was followed by another, wherein he
sounded the praises of Beatrice, and testified that love
inspired by her was altogether blessed.
In no long time Beatrice's father died. Dante did
not witness her grief, but he saw the reflection of it in
the sorrowful eyes of certain ladies, who had been to
visit her; and he also overheard their conversation.
Dante was so stricken by the blow that his appear-
ance was entirely altered. A grievous malady seized
upon him, and in his feebleness the thought oc-
curred to him that sooner or later Beatrice must die.
Upon this he became delirious, and saw horrible visions
of dishevelled women, who told him he would die.
Then others appeared, who told him he was dead. His
mind continuing to wander, he thought the sun was
eclipsed, the stars changed colour, the birds fell dead,
as they were flying through the air, and there were
exceeding great earthquakes. Then a friend came to
him in his dream with the news that his lady had
departed this life.
Dante fancied he saw a multitude of angels bearing
THE "VITA NUOVA" 161
the soul of Beatrice, in fashion as a little cloud of
purest whiteness, up into heaven, and that he went to
behold the body. Dante's sister was at his bedside,
and, thinking his tears were caused by his infirmity,
began to weep in sympathy. This attracted the notice
of other women who were in the room; and, having
led her away, they awoke him just as he was on the
point of exclaiming " O Beatrice, blessed art thou ! "
He, however, could say no more than " O Beatrice,"
and this was not understood by the women his voice
was so broken with sobbing.
Having recovered somewhat, Dante composed a
second great ode, " O lady pitiful and of tender age."
He regained not only his health, but his spirits, and
imagining that he saw first Love, then Giovanna (or
Primavera), Guido Cavalcanti's friend, and finally
the wondrous Beatrice coming towards him, wrote a
sonnet on the two marvels and their herald. Dante
was delighted to find that his lady was so generally
beloved that people ran to see when she walked abroad,
and spoke of her as an angel and a heavenly miracle.
Her very presence was a benediction, and those ladies
who were privileged to be her companions shared her
virtue and the homage that was paid her. Dante
would fain have described his new temper of mind,
and began a canzone, in which he contrasted his
former woes with his present state of happiness and
contentment. He had only completed the first stanza
when the righteous Lord called the most gentle
Beatrice to glory. Dante refrains from dwelling upon
her decease for three reasons, all of which appear
M
1 62 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
singular. The theme did not sort with the intention
of the work as stated in the proem, it was too difficult,
and it would have entailed self-praise conduct which
he strongly reprehends in the " Convivio."
The light of his lady's presence having been with-
drawn, the city seemed widowed and desolate, and
Dante bewailed its condition in a Latin address to the
princes of the land, beginning with the first verse of
Lamentations, which serves also as an introduction
to this portion of the book and to Epistle VIII.
Dante does not embody this address in his text, since
he and Cavalcanti had agreed that the work should be
written wholly in Italian, but he rendered a tribute of
sorrow to his lost Beatrice in a canzone full of ex-
quisite pathos. In the preface he explains why he de-
parted from the practice he had hitherto observed of
making the analysis follow the poem it was that the
ode itself, wanting this customary addition, might
produce an impression of bereavement.
Dante's best friend after Cavalcanti, who, from the
language employed, must have been Beatrice's brother,
now approached him with a request that he would
write something on a lady who had recently died. A
sonnet and a short canzone of two stanzas were
offered to him, the former wholly, and the latter par-
tially, expressive of Dante's sentiments towards the
dead Beatrice.
On the anniversary of his loss Dante was drawing
an angel, when he was surprised by some gentlemen,
who watched what he was doing. He rose and wel
corned them, and after they had gone away returned-
THE "VITA NUOVA" 163
to his task of drawing angels. Then he took up his
pen and indited a sonnet addressed to his visitors.
The little poem, which shows that his grief was still
fresh, is remarkable for its two beginnings. The
phraseology of the first is very similar to that which
marks the commencement of xxix, and it is not
likely that Dante was dissatisfied with it on account
of any imperfection of form. Otherwise he would not
have presented alternative openings. Rather it would
seem that when he had finished the composition the
thought struck him that he had omitted all allusion
to the occasion of it, and in order to repair this
defect he re-wrote the opening quatrain.
Dante was most desirous of suppressing outward
signs of his agony of mind when there was a possibility
of their being observed by others, but one day he
became aware that a young and very beautiful gentle-
woman was gazing at him from a window with an
expression of the deepest pity. The poet burst into
tears and hurried off, but he did not forget the look of
sympathy, and argued from it that love between him
and her could be only of the most noble character.
They met again and again, and the poet thought he
could detect in her appearance symptoms of love
blended with those of pity: and the sight of the
lady undoubtedly gave him pleasure. At the same
time he felt a considerable measure of remorse, and
upbraided his eyes for their folly and forgetfulness of
Beatrice. However, the new passion continued, and
Dante was plunged into what he calls a "battle of
thoughts"; at one moment reviling himself for har-
164 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
bouring the idea of consolation, and then seeking to
justify the attachment.
This mental strife was ended by a vision of Bea-
trice, as he had seen her in her youthful beauty and
crimson vesture. He was shamed into penitence, and
the wicked desire having been chased from his bosom,
all his thoughts were turned once more to his own
most gentle lady. As the consequence the reign of tears
and sighs began again.
After passing through this period of tribulation,
Dante observed a number of strangers in one of the
principal streets of Florence. They were pilgrims on
their way to look upon the Veronica at Rome, and,
being such, it occurred to him that they were not
likely to have heard of Beatrice and the grievous
calamity that had befallen the city through her death.
He therefore wrote a sonnet, ostensibly to enlighten
them. Then two ladies sent to request a copy of the
poem. Dante had so high an opinion of them that he
composed another the twenty-fifth in the book and
presented them with both sonnets, together with the
one he had written at the desire of Beatrice's kinsman.
Finally, there appeared to him a wondrous vision, to
which, in the present state of his attainments, he felt
himself incapable of doing justice. Accordingly he
resolved to say no more of Beatrice until, by devoting
his whole powers to study, he was able to say of her
what had never been said of any woman. Dante
concludes with a prayer that his soul may go to behold
the glory of his lady, the blessed Beatrice.
THE ' ; VITA NUOVA" 165
6. SIGNIFICANCE
Before dealing with special features of the work, it
is expedient that we ask ourselves, what does it signify
as a whole? Is it pure allegory, or is it, as we have
assumed, a record of actual experiences? The "Vita
Nuova " has been termed " a spiritual romance," and
Bartoli and others insist that Beatrice was no maiden
of flesh and blood, but a personified abstraction.
Just as Dante explains that the lady with whom he
consoled himself was really philosophy, so they would
have us believe that Beatrice was just donna the idea
of womanhood.
One is constrained to allow that the narrative con-
tains a great deal that must strike one as improbable
and fictitious. Such, for example, is Dante's account
of his sensations when he fell in love at the age of
eight. Here he is obviously transferring to his child-
hood the reflections of later years. He anticipates
what is to follow, not in his thoughts at the time, but
in his subsequent version of the affair. His extreme
youthfulness as a lover has been made the subject of
scepticism, but Lord Byron was still younger only
six when he first experienced the sentiment. So far
as it goes, therefore, this precocity on Dante's part
strengthens the theory of Beatrice's reality, as the
touch was needless, and even foolish, if there was no
foundation of fact. One point on which Bartoli en-
larges is the series of coincidences connected with the
number nine. His argument is not convincing. In
some cases the coincidences may have been genuine,
1 66 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
whilst in the others Dante has to exercise consider-
able ingenuity in order to reconcile dates with a
mystic principle.
No doubt the "Vita Nuova" lends itself to allegorical
interpretation. We may, if we choose, conceive of it
as a parable of the vanity of earthly wishes, the failure
of human aspirations, even the best. For Dante
aspires, he does not attain. If it be granted that the
greeting of Beatrice is attainment, as in a sense it is,
Dante forfeits it; and so, however we regard the
matter, the notion of discomfiture pervades the narra-
tive until we approach the close, where the peace of
God, expectation of final reunion, and the promise of
rare poetical achievement, introduce a note of happi-
ness, and even triumph.
It is remarkable that in his rationalistic " Convivio "
Dante nowhere hints that Beatrice was aught but
what she appears, and very few, we imagine, who have
perused the "Vita Nuova," uninfluenced by the
metamorphoses of its sequel and the common but
erroneous belief that in the " Commedia " Beatrice
symbolizes bare theology, 1 will question that, however
curious they may find the story, it is based on actual
occurrences. This conviction is due to the passion
and pathos that inform the majority of the poems, as
well as much of the prose. Common sense rebels
at the suggestion that all this exaltation and despair
were evoked by nothing more tangible than a mental
image of impossible perfection cold, lifeless, statu-
1 Beatrice, of course, does symbolize theology, but she repre-
sents much besides notably love and compassion.
THE "VITA NUOVA' : 167
esque. As to that, Beatrice, as she is depicted to us,
is by no means a being of absolute perfection, since
she derides Dante's insupportable misery. Naturally,
this circumstance has proved a stumbling-block to the
idealist school of interpreters. Doubtless an image
existed in Dante's mind, and he yielded to the illusion
that the object of his affection corresponded with the
flattering portrait. All lovers do.
Beatrice then was a real Florentine maiden, and
this was probably her right name. Dante observes in
his proem that she was called Beatrice by many who
could only call her so, i.e. they did not comprehend
that the name was an accurate symbol, that she was
indeed beatrix, the bestower of blessing. Had
" Beatrice " been merely a senhal, similar to those
employed by the troubadours in addressing their mis-
tresses, Dante would hardly have spoken of "many";
he would have said " by me," or, at most, " by me and
my friends." Moreover, in Sonnet XIV he uses the
abbreviated form Bice, which is evidently a pet name. 1
Guido Cavalcanti was certainly an historical person,
and in xxiv we read of his friendship with a lady
named Giovanna, a famous beauty who was called
Primavera (Springtide) on account of her charms. In
the sonnet referred to the ladies are mentioned to-
gether as " Monna Vanna" and "Monna Bice." If
Beatrice had been a fanciful appellation like Primavera,
Dante would hardly have written in this colloquial
strain, in which he turns to account an incident of
common life.
1 See also " Par." vii, 14.
i68 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
The poet, we hold, idealizes an affair of the heart,
not of the intellect, employing for the purpose the
most imposing language, and elevating the whole
chapter of events into the pure atmosphere of religion.
Nothing can exceed the ease, the grace, and the refine-
ment of Dante's lyrics, which assume the form of
long-drawn-out musical sighs or rapturous acclaim of
his lady's transcendent virtues. Save in the first sonnet,
there is not a touch indicating consciousness of the
lower corporeal pleasures, but alike in the poetry and
in those passages of the prose that are poetry in all
but name, there is intense feeling rising at times to
ecstasy. The spontaneity that marks these composi-
tions is traceable to the conditions in which they
were produced. Like the " fiery tears " ot St. Law-
rence that shoot across the autumn sky, they were
thrown off when the parent substance was at white
heat; and it is to this quality of luminous and con-
densed emotion that they owe as Dante was well
aware their specific excellence. 1
7. THE PORTINARI TRADITION
It is sufficient in one sense to believe that Dante's
lady was a living, breathing woman, for this obviates
the stultification involved in the opposite theory
that the stress of passion was caused by a sublimate of
femininity! We may not, however, ignore the fact
that Boccaccio claims to have ascertained from a
trustworthy person the identity of that wonderful lady.
1 "Purg." xxiv, 49-59.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 169
She is said to have been the daughter of a Florentine
gentleman, Folco Portinari, and married to Messer
Simone de' Bardi. Confirmation of this story has
been found in the " Codex Ashburnham " of the com-
mentary of Pietro Alighieri, Dante's son, but this may
have been interpolated, whilst Boccaccio's evidence is
regarded by many high authorities with suspicion.
But it so happens that in this instance it does not lack
some sort of corroboration. There is no question
whatever of the existence of Messer Folco di Ricovero
Portinari and his daughter Beatrice, or Bice, nor yet
of the marriage of the young lady with Messer Simone.
These facts are established by Portinari's will, dated
1 5th January, 1288. It is known also that he died on
3ist December, 1289, and that the Alighieri and
Portinari families occupied adjoining houses. The
last circumstance would account for the early intimacy
between Dante and Beatrice; and the date of Porti-
nari's death harmonizes very well with the record in
the "Vita Nuova." The work shows that, after years
of the strictest secrecy, Dante's love for Beatrice was
common knowledge at Florence at any rate, in the
circle in which they both moved; and there is every
reason to suppose that so interesting a tradition would
have been handed down to succeeding generations in
the way Boccaccio describes.
But Beatrice's marriage with Simone de' Bardi has
been considered to constitute a grave obstacle to the
acceptance of her identity with the Beatrice of the
" Vita Nuova." One of the sanest critics of recent
years, Herr Karl Federn, holds it to be impossible
170 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
that the object of Dante's passionate devotion can
ever have been wedded. It would have been too
great a shock for his sensibilities, and had such an
event occurred he must have mentioned it. This,
however, is not so certain; indeed, it must be evident
on reflection that he could not mention it in view of
the fact that he could not bring himself to renounce
his affection for her, whether alive or dead, and
cherished her memory to the last, as the most precious
of all earthly possessions. Dante, as we have seen,
denies himself the melancholy satisfaction of recording
the details of Beatrice's death as contrary to his
purpose. Mention of her marriage would, it may be
thought, be still more contrary to his purpose, it would
be downright bathos. Still, it is possible that he
alludes to it, though with studied obscurity. There is
a wedding in the "Vita Nuova"; is it quite incon-
ceivable that it was that of Beatrice herself? Dante,
being an old friend of the family, may have been
invited, and found himself unable to decline the hate-
ful and terrible ordeal, with consequences similar to
those portrayed in the work. The gabbo may have
been the thoughtless raillery of the light-hearted bride
and her attendants, or Dante may have intended by
it the marriage itself as a culminating outrage on his
feelings. If so, this would be a characteristic example
of his subtlety a quality on which he prided himself.
The " Vita Nuova " contains a number of instances of
subterfuge of one lady being substituted for another;
hence there would be no occasion for surprise if
1 See especially v, vii, ix.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 171
Dante disguised the incident which terminated all his
illusions.
It may seem strange that Dante should extol and '
glorify one who had slighted him and given herself to
another. But, in the first place, there is no evidence
that his affection had ever been reciprocated; and,
secondly, we know nothing of the circumstances of
the Portinari marriage. It may not have been a love-
match, and even if it were, Dante may have asked
himself what was left to him now that the contract
had destroyed any hope he had entertained of wedding
her. The answer was that there still remained the
indestructible impression of her beautiful personality
and the elevating influence of the pure and heavenly
dreams associated with his worship of her. Her pre-
mature decease, wresting her from Simone, restored
her as it were to Dante, to whom, after an interval of
forgetfulness, she served as a perpetual inspiration,
and whom he eventually canonized as one of the
greatest of saints.
8. BEATRICE'S RIVAL
Who was the lady whose love consoled Dante for a
space? In the "Convivio" she is said to have been
Philosophy, but this is manifestly an afterthought.
Scartazzini will have it that she was Gemma Donati,
Dante's wife, and the passage that he cites from
Boccaccio lends colour to the opinion that this was
also the biographer's belief. If the "Vita Nuovai'
represents the attachment as a transgression, the
1 72 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
work, according to Scartazzini and many others, was
composed before Dante's marriage, and the repent-
ance of which it speaks was repented of. As against
this it must be recollected that the " Vita Nuova " and
the " Commedia " are in absolute accord, so that it
would be necessary to suppose a third repentance.
Nowhere in his writings does Dante mention Gemma
or his marriage save in this doubtful instance, and
thus it appears far more likely that the reference is to
some lady whom he admired and did not marry.
Even in maturer life he allowed himself to be
beguiled by at least one charmer. 1 If Gemma is
intended, we can only conclude that the passage
recording his repentance was written several years
after the marriage, which took place in 1293 or there-
abouts a conclusion at which we have arrived on
other grounds. If the relations between the pair had
become strained, this would explain also why Dante,
in the " Convivio," ascribes the warm expressions of
his Canzoni to his love of philosophy. It might then
have seemed absurd to have depicted his estranged
and angry wife as consoling him. It is the general
opinion, however, that Dante kept his domestic affairs
to himself and abstained from obtruding them on the
notice of an indifferent world.
9. THE PROSE STYLE
It is a well-known fact that poetry perhaps we
^hould say verse always precedes prose in the literary
1 See pp. 25, 26.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 173
evolution of a language. As culture advances, the
sphere of metrical composition becomes restricted to
certain topics mainly love, war, and morality, as in-
dicated by Dante in the " De Vulgari Eloquentia."
In the early periods this limitation is not recognized,
and almost any topic is handled in verse form. As
far as Italy is concerned, the tenzone may be regarded
as the connecting link between verse and prose.
"Often," says Gaspary, "as in most of the similar
poems of the troubadours, it is a question of certain
subtle distinctions in the matter of love affairs. . . .
But other, and still less poetical problems, also appear
in these dialogues. One asks another to resolve his
doubts in scientific questions, and the Florentines, as
we shall see, make tenzoni on political subjects too.
Dino Compagni, in a sonnet, lays before a lawyer,
Lapo Saltarelli, a complicated legal case, and Guittone
and his imitators occupy themselves with abstruse
moral and theological themes." l Now Dino Compagni
and Lapo Salterello were contemporaries of Dante,
who, as we have seen, makes the very true and just
observation that the prose writers of the day borrowed
from the poets and not vice versa. Prose, in fact, was
still in its infancy, and the " Vita Nuova " is the
earliest example of artistic prose in the Italian lan-
guage. It has notable merits the sovereign virtue
of lucidity, where there is not an intention to be
vague or obscure a pure and graceful vocabulary,
and a skill in the construction of sentences that might
be expected from one who devoted much thought to
1 P. 78 (Bohn's Library); for Salterello see above, p. 23.
174 HANDBOOK TO UANTE
the technique of composition and infinite care to the
elaboration of his ideas. At the same time the " Vita
Nuova " bears unmistakable signs that it was written
by a poet. The pomp and ceremony that distinguish
certain passages especially the opening sections
appear exaggerated, almost ludicrous in relation to the
simple circumstances that form the ground, and are
calculated to repel, rather than attract, the reader.
In his essay " On the Prose Style of Poets," ' Hazlitt
remarks : " Poets think they are bound by their in-
dentures to the Muses to ' elevate and surprise ' in
every line. They make or pretend an extraordinary
interest where there is none. It should seem as if
they considered prose as a sort of waiting-maid to
poetry that could only be expected to wear the mis-
tress's cast-off finery." And, referring to Coleridge, he
adds: "He has an incessant craving, as it were, to
exalt every idea into a metaphor, to expand every
sentiment into a mystery, voluminous and vast, con-
fused and cloudy." We may compare with this judge-
ment the great part that Love plays in the narrative,
and Dante's apology for the same in xxv. There
he is evidently commenting on the preceding sonnet,
but Love appears as an actor not only in that and
other lyrics, but in various passages of the ancillary
prose. This is the most conspicuous instance of the
influence of mythology, with which is closely asso-
ciated the psychology, or rather ontology, of the
. work. What does Dante intend by that strange,
unreal, uncouth system of " spirits "? Why does he
1 Bohn's Library ed. p. 15.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 175
choose to clog his narrative with reports of the sayings
and doings of these animated puppets?
10. PSYCHOLOGY
At the outset it may be remarked that this mode of
representing things is a convention inherited from,
and shared with, the poets of the dolce stil nuovo,
which had its birth in the philosophic atmosphere of
Bologna. It is in no sense peculiar to Dante. Lapo
Gianni, Dino Frescobaldi, Cino Sinibaldi, Guido
Cavalcanti, all adopted this method of denoting
mental and spiritual processes, and so it is part of the
" second-hand finery " worn by the prose of the " Vita
Nuova " as waiting-maid to the poetry. At best, it is
a doubtful ornament. Bartoli calls it " an indubitable
intrusion of philosophy into the field of art." ' But we
must, at any rate, seek to understand what is meant
by the device. Dante employs the phrase not only in
the early, but in later passages of the book; hence it
is worth while to take some trouble about it, and it is
only by patient study and comparison of its different
applications that we can comprehend its significance.
We may be tempted to say that the spirit of life, the
spirits of vision, the natural spirits are, for practical
purposes, merely periphrastic personifications, and
that all that is necessary is to substitute for them Life,
Eyes, Nature, etc., spelling each word with a capital
initial letter. To a certain extent this may suffice, as
in xxxvin we find Dante addressing his eyes with-
1 iv, 13-
176 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
out any such circumlocution. It is certain, however,
that by the " spirits of vision " he means more than
the fleshly eyes. This comes out quite clearly in
xiv, where he speaks of the eyes as their instru-
ments. (Incidentally it may be noticed that Dante
makes fine use of the idea in this context, for he
represents Love as occupying the vacant place of the
spirits of vision, in order to behold his lady.) Each of
these spirits, it will be observed, has its appointed
sphere. Dante does not mention that of the spirits of
vision in the "Vita Nuova," but in the "Convivio" 1
he tells us that it communicates between the pupil of
the eye and that part of the brain in which the faculty
of perception (la virtute sensibile) resides, as in its
fontal source. In modern parlance the nearest ap-
proach to "spirit" in this immediate connection is
perhaps " principle," but it must not be forgotten that
once or twice Dante plainly intimates that by spirito
or spiritdlo he intends a thought, 2 and in many cases
the word will doubtless bear the construction of a
form of consciousness. In others the phrase " element
of consciousness " appears to express the meaning.
All the manifold activities of man, spiritual, intel-
lectual, and corporeal, are figured as members of a
household or state, as ministers in a complex economy
in which Mind is the ruling factor. Some help to the
understanding of the subject can be obtained from
that chapter in the " Convivio " 3 wherein Dante dis-
cusses the threefold nature of the soul, which, he tells
us in the "Paradise," 4 is diffused through the various
1 iii, 9. 2 "Conv." ii, 7, 16. 3 iii, 2. * ii, 133-5.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 177
members of the body, each of which is adapted to a
particular power or faculty.
Did Dante believe in the objectivity of the spirits,
or were they mere flatus vocist We might draw the
latter conclusion from his chapter on the personifica-
tion of love, but it is not certain we should be right.
Dante's philosophy may, in this respect, have resem-
bled Bacon's. "The idea," says Ellis, "on which
Bacon's theory of longevity is founded, namely, that
the principle of life resides in a subtle fluid or spirit,
which permeates the tangible parts of the organization
of plants and animals, seems to be coeval with the
first origin of speculative physiology. Bacon was one
of those by whom this idea was extended from organ-
ized to inorganic bodies; in all substances, according
to him, resides a portion of spirit, which manifests
itself only in its operations, being altogether intangible
and without weight. This doctrine appeared to him
to be of most certain truth, but he has nowhere stated
the grounds of his conviction, nor even indicated the
kind of evidence by which the existence of the spiritus
is to be established. In living bodies he conceived
that two kinds of spirits exist: a crude or mortuary
spirit, such as is present in other substances; and the
animal or vital spirit, to which the phenomena of life
are to be referred. To keep this vital spirit, the wine
of life, from oozing away, ought to be the aim of the
physician who attempts to increase the number of our
few and evil days." l
1 Preface to "Hist. Vitae et Mortis," E. and S., vol. ii,
p. 94.
178 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
There is no precise correspondence between the
two modes of thought, the mortuary spirit having no
place in Dante's system, except as regards the influ-
ence of the Blessed Intelligences on the course of
nature. 1 The co-existence of different spirits, however,
is a point common to both philosophers, and, in
Dante's case, this applies to the soul as well as to the
body. We learn from the " Convivio " 2 that, while a
spirit represents a single thought, a recurring thought
which has acquired the character of an accepted and
abiding principle may be fitly indicated as the soul;
and thus the latter may be viewed as a congeries of
prevailing spirits or ruling principles. Dante's spirit
of life approximates to Bacon's animal or vital spirit.
In the "Vita Nuova " the seat of this spirit is the heart
naturally, for if the heart ceases to beat the " vege-
tative " life, the lowest form of being, ceases.
Like the senses, the primary instincts are elevated
into spirits. By the natural spirit that dwells in the
mouth is meant the appetite, as will be seen on
turning to iv, where the phrase is re-introduced.
The heart is not only the seat of the spirit of life,
but the symbol of appetite in the more general sense
of desire, and here, more particularly, of sexual
desire. Dante distinctly states that this is the case in
his comments on Sonnet XXII, and the definition har-
monizes with his use of the metaphor. In a dream he
beholds his lady naked in the arms of Love, who feeds
her with Dante's heart. This is afterwards deposited
by Love with a lady to whom Dante addresses many
1 " Par." ii. - " Conv." ii, 7, 8.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 179
poems, as if he loved her; and subsequently the god,
meeting Dante on the highway, informs him that, as
the lady has quitted Florence never to return, he has
repossessed himself of the heart, and is conveying it
to another lady, who is to serve in the same capacity.
If we could place absolute dependence on these hiero-
glyphics, we should read between the lines of his
formal version a confession of real passion for the lady
of defence. As a rule, when the poets of the dolce stil
nuovo, including Dante himself, talk of defence with
regard to love matters, they mean defence not against
discovery, but against that state of complete prostra-
tion which they term death, and of which we have a
startling description in the " Vita Nuova." This is
not to deny that Dante was all the while more in love
with Beatrice than the other lady, but the force of his
attachment, and a sense of her great worth, rendered
him timid. He staved off the day of final disillusion-
ment as long as possible ; and meanwhile the lady of
defence served as a safety-valve. Dante, in a casuistical
sonnet, decides that it is possible to love two women
at the same time one for her beauty, and the other
for her virtue; 1 one as a source of pleasure, and the
other as a motive of high achievement.
Bartoli maintains that, if Beatrice was a person, not
an abstract ideal, Dante's conduct was disreputable in
shamming an attachment for another woman, and
then proclaiming his hypocrisy to the world. Like
Scartazzini, he takes it for granted that Dante was too
good a man to be capable of such a want of considera-
i8o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
tion to his fair friends, whereas nothing in the poet's
career stands out with more glaring distinctness than
the unfortunate results that attended his philandering.
In the " Vita Nuova " his suit to the second lady of
defence leads to scandal, and Beatrice herself is com-
pelled, by regard for her reputation, to ignore him in
public, and ridicule his hysterical transports in society.
On this point Dante showed himself incorrigible; for
years afterwards he records against himself in the
" Purgatorio " : 1
"A maid is born and wears not yet the veil,"
Began he, " who to thee shall pleasant make
My city, howsoever man may blame it.
Thou shalt go on thy way with this prevision ;
If by my murmuring thou hast been deceived,
True things hereafter will declare it to thee."
There is no grammatical reason why we should not
translate " blame her " instead of " blame it " (i.e. the
city); and, in any case, the mention of the benda, or
married woman's head-dress, points to the circum-
stance she was no longer unwedded at the time of
their friendship. In so far, then, as Bartoli bases his
argument for the non-existence of Beatrice in the
flesh on the axiom of Dante's respectability and sensi-
tive punctilio, it is far from convincing.
Now what is the truth about the abstract nature of
Dante's love, for there is something in it? In the first
place, stress has been laid on the expression "the
glorious lady of my mind" which is found at the very
commencement of the " Vita Nuova." This has been
1 xxiv, 43-5.
THE '-'VITA NUOVA" 181
supposed to imply that Beatrice was an imaginary
being, who existed only in Dante's mind. The real
meaning, unless we are much deceived, is quite
different. Dante here uses the term donna, not in its
ordinary acceptation of "woman," but in the original
sense of domina. Beatrice was literally the mistress of
his mind. She was his absorbing thought, and de-
stroyed his liberty of action. That this is what is
signified by donna is shown by a later passage in the
same chapter in which he dwells on the signoria of
love, and even more decisively by the alternative ver-
sion of the same incident in Canzone XIII, more par-
ticularly the line E sard donna sopra tutti noi ("and
she will be mistress over us all "), spoken by the
faculty of vision.
The fact is that the disciples of Guinicelli, while
they were lovers, were also philosophers. They re-
flected deeply on the phenomenon of love, and learned
to distinguish between the material cause or occasion
of love and the mental image, which was the effect.
The former, the real woman, was the cosa; the latter
the imagine, the figura, or, more rarely, the spirito.
This last term is employed in Sonnet X, which de-
scribes the process of falling in love, of which a
longer and more explicit account is given in the
eighteenth canto of the " Purgatorio ": l
" Direct," he said, " towards me the keen eyes
Of intellect, and clear to thee will be
The error of the blind who would be leaders.
1 11. 16-39.
182 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
The soul, which is created apt to love,
Is mobile unto everything that pleases,
Soon as by pleasure she is waked to action.
Your apprehension from some real thing
An image draws, and in yourselves displays it,
So that it makes the soul turn unto it.
And if, when turned, towards it she incline,
Love is that inclination ; it is nature,
Which by pleasure is bound in you anew.
Then even as the fire doth upward move
By its own form, which to ascend is born,
Where longest in its matter it endures,
So comes the captive soul into desire,
Which is a motion spiritual, and ne'er rests,
Until it doth enjoy the thing beloved."
This completely disposes of the fallacy that Dante's
love for Beatrice was from the first platonic, intel-
lectual, unmixed with desire. He clearly understood
that love, by its very nature, involves desire, that its
goal is possession. Beatrice's greeting was all that he
obtained from her, but the vehemence of his emotions
precludes the belief that this was indeed " the end of
all his desires," though the denial of this recognition
must have pained him as closing the door on his
lover's hopes. It was a case of unrequited affection,
and Dante accepted the part of a distant admirer only
when the offer of his heart had been sharply disdained.
The passage in the " Purgatorio " concludes:
Now may apparent be to thee how hidden
The truth is from those people, who aver
All love is in itself a laudable thing;
Because its matter may perchance appear
Aye to be good ; yet not each impression
Is good, albeit good may be the wax.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 183
These words seem to have some bearing on the Pro-
tean character of Love, who, as depicted to us in the
"Vita Nuova," is neither an infallible nor, at all
times, a very respectable personage. He associates
himself with Dante's miserable device of duping cer-
tain ladies, and acts as his go-between. If we confine
ourselves to the bare statements of the " Vita Nuova,"
all that happened was that Dante allowed it to be
supposed that he loved a lady other than Beatrice,
and addressed insincere poems to her, Love pre-
sumably being the bearer of these valentines. At best
this was not a very exalted function, but a candid
perusal of Sonnet V will perhaps induce the belief
that the business of Love on that occasion was, as we
have already suggested, of another kind, and more in
accordance with his traditional office.
Really Love appears in the " Vita Nuova " under
different aspects once as an unsuccessful pander
posing as a pilgrim in mean attire, 1 and again as a
youth arrayed in spotless white, that is, as an angel,
in which capacity he uses the Latin tongue "very
obscurely." 2 Love does not interpret to Dante, nor
Dante to us, the purport of the dark saying, but some
clue to the meaning may be obtained from the
" Convivio," 3 in which geometry is said to be very
white, because it is not spotted by error. White is
also the emblem of moral purity, and there is no
reason to doubt that Beatrice was most chaste. In
1 ix. 2 xii.
3 ii, 14, where it is also stated that the circle is a most perfect
figure.
184 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Sonnet XIV Love calls her by his own name " so
much she resembles me" and in xxm her depart-
ing spirit is compared to a very white cloudlet. Love
therefore takes his colour from the object and nature
of the passion, but Dante addresses him as " Lord of
Nobility " in the " Vita Nuova," and apostrophizes
him in such ardent terms in Canzone IX that one
cannot doubt the poet conceived of him as a lofty
and beneficent daemon, though unquestionably a
hard taskmaster.
ii. MYSTICISM
We have spoken of the oracle of Love. This is part
of the mysticism which is so marked a feature of the
" Vita Nuova," and which shows itself in other forms,
besides the purely religious. For instance, Dante never
once mentions Florence it is "the city where my
lady was set by the most high Lord," or "the city
aforesaid"; and, as we have seen, Guido Cavalcanti is
always " the first of my friends." Similarly, the head
is the high chamber, " to which all the spirits carry
their perceptions," and the mouth is " that part where
our nutriment is ministered." The object is to impart
solemnity to the narrative, to lift it above the pollu-
tion of common, everyday life into the rarer and purer
atmosphere of philosophic abstraction. In his strivings
after grandeur and impressiveness Dante adopts the
most recondite means of revealing (or concealing)
the dates of occurrences. Thus he states that, at
Beatrice's first appearance, she had been in the world
THE "VITA NUOVA" 185
long enough for the Stellar Heaven to have moved
eastwards one twelfth of a degree. This mode of com-
putation was derived from the Arabian astronomer,
Alfraganus, who lived in the early part of the ninth
century, and to whose works Dante had access through
the medium of translations. Alfraganus taught that
the Heaven of the Fixed Stars moved from west to
east at the rate of one degree in a hundred years.
Beatrice was therefore eight years and four months
old at the time in question.
Still more intricate is the manner in which Dante
indicates the period of her death. Three usages the
Arabian, the Syrian, and the Italian are brought into
play; and on the basis of these discordant methods of
calculation it is shown that Beatrice died in the first
hour of the ninth day of the ninth month of the year
in which the perfect number ten had been nine
times completed in the thirteenth century, i.e. on
9th June, 1290. As Dante was then twenty-five, and
Beatrice some months younger, she would have been
twenty-four when she died.
Now it must not be supposed that these laboured
statements are gratuitous, or designed only to enhance
the obscurity of the narrative. They are the fruits of
a mysticism to which it is a law that all the important
events of Dante's " new life " shall be associated with
the number nine, its root, three, or a number of which
three is a divisor. One and ten are also significant, 1
though Dante, in this work, lays less stress upon them.
In xxx he points out that Beatrice was a Christian
1 See " De Mon." i, 8; " De Vulg. Eloq." i, 16.
186 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
of the thirteenth century, probably because thirteen is
made up of ten, the perfect number, and three. The
Stellar Heaven has moved the twelfth of a degree since
the birth of Beatrice. Twelve is four multiplied by
three.
It is, however, with nine, the square of three, that
Dante is chiefly concerned, and in xxix he calls
our attention to its repeated occurrence in his narra-
tive. This is certainly a fact. Beatrice and himself
are both in their ninth year at her first appearance.
They are in their eighteenth when Dante's love for her
is deepened or renewed. His earliest vision happens
in the fourth hour of the night, but he overcomes the
difficulty by designating it the first of the last nine
hours. In the serventese, wherein he celebrated the
sixty fairest ladies of Florence, the name of Beatrice
can only be introduced as the ninth in order. The
vision of Love in xn takes place in the ninth hour
of the day; it is on the ninth day of his malady that
he bethinks him Beatrice must die7and it is at the
hour of noon the canonical ninth hour that Beatrice
appears to him after her decease.
How is it to be explained? Dante professes no cer-
tainty, but he puts forward two conjectures, which are
not quite compatible. " The reason," he says, " why
this number was so friendly to her might be this:
Since according to Ptolemy and the Christian truth
the heavens that move are nine in number, and ac-
cording to common astrologic opinion the said heavens
produce effects here below, according to their habitude,
in conjunction, this number was a friend of hers to
THE "VITA NUOVA" 187
give us to understand that all nine mobile heavens
were in most perfect accord in her generation. This is
one reason. But thinking more subtly, and accord-
ing to infallible truth, this number was herself; by
similitude I mean, and I intend it thus. The number
three is the root of nine, since without other number,
multiplied by itself, it makes nine, as we see manifestly
that three times three makes nine. Therefore if three by
itself is the maker of nine, and the maker of miracles by
himself is three, namely, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
who are three and one, this lady was accompanied by
the number nine to give us to understand that she was
a nine, that is a miracle, whose root is solely the
wondrous Trinity. Perchance by more subtle person
would be seen therein a more subtle reason, but this
it is that I see, and that most pleases me."
Beatrice is called a " miracle " in Canzone I,
Sonnets XI and XV, and again in the " Paradiso "
(xvin, 63). Dante probably used the term synonym-
ously with "angel." In n he applies the latter
expression to Beatrice, and in xxvi the words seem
convertible. The portrayal of a beloved lady as an
angel is, in fact, one of the notes of the dolce stil
nuovo. The "appearances" of Beatrice are analogous
to the appearance of the Angel of the Lord to
Zacharias, as recorded by St. Luke (i, n), and the
exclamation of the spirit of life in n is clearly
modelled on Luke iii, 16. The insertion in the Italian
text of Latin sentences attributed to the various spirits
and Love is obviously due to the fact that Latin is
the language of the Vulgate, which Dante quotes in
1 88 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
vn and xxiv, the latter quotation being taken from
Luke iii, 4.
We have compared Beatrice's "appearances" to
those of the Angel of the Lord, but the three ex-
clamations suggest that Dante was really thinking
of our Lord's epiphany, in the same way as the pre-
monition of her death recalls the signs and wonders
that followed the Crucifixion. In Sonnet II he appro-
priates, and, we may say, desecrates, a passage in
Jeremiah by transferring to his own pangs language
generally regarded as prophetic of our Lord's sorrow.
Dante felt no incongruity, because love was a sacra-
ment.
By the "appearances" of Beatrice Dante indicates
the crises in which he became vividly and more or
less permanently conscious of her existence and worth,
and his soul became knit to her in the bonds of love
and admiration. The process is accomplished by the
image of the lady passing from her eyes to his own,
and fixing itself in his mind, which forthwith cherishes
and adorns it.
Closely connected with this phenomenon is the
succession of dreams or visions, of which Dante re-
marks in the "Convivio" that "through my genius I
already saw many things, so to speak, dreaming, as
may be seen in the ' Vita Nuova.' " It may be taken
for granted that the visions are not dreams in the
common or literal sense. They are poetical fantasies
expressed in the terms of a vision, than which it is
difficult to find a word more suited to describe a con-
dition of complete detachment from ordinary interests.
THE "VITA NUOVA" 189
It may be noted that in ix the term " imagination "
is substituted for " dream," and the circumstance that
Love "appeared" to him, whilst he was journeying,
precludes the notion that the poet was asleep. We
may look for the germ of his first vision in his reading.
Dante was an admirer of Sordello, who makes a great
figure in the " Purgatorio," and it is probable that at
some time he had perused the planh on Blacatz,
whose heart was to be eaten by certain pusillanimous
monarchs, when they would have " heart enow." True,
in that case, it is courage, not love or desire, that is to
be assimilated, but the general idea that of inocula-
tion by feeding is in both instances the same. The
phrase mange del cor had, by dint of iteration, been
stamped on Dante's memory, whence, with a vague
reminiscence of its context, or perhaps by a conscious
metamorphosis, he made it the basis of an allegory.
"I believe," says Ruskin, 1 "that the noblest forms of
imaginative power are in some sort ungovernable, and
have in them something of the character of dreams;
so that the vision, of whatever kind, comes uncalled,
and will not submit itself to the seer, but conquers
him and forces him to speak as a prophet, having no
power over his words or thoughts. Only if the whole
man be trained perfectly, and his mind calm, con-
sistent, and powerful, the vision which comes to him
is seen as in a perfect mirror, serenely and in consist-
ence with the rational powers; but if the mind be im-
perfect and ill-trained, the vision is seen as in a broken
mirror, with strange distortions and discrepancies, all
1 "Stones of Venice," ii, 195-6 (1881 ed.). ,
1 9 o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the passions of the heart breathing upon it in cross
ripples till hardly a trace of it remains unbroken. So
that, strictly speaking, the imagination is never
governed; it is always the ruling and Divine power;
and the rest of the man is to it only as an instrument
which it sounds, or a tablet on which it writes; clearly
and sublimely, if the wax be smooth and the strings
true, grotesquely and wildly, if they are stained and
broken. And thus the 'Iliad,' the 'Inferno,' the
' Pilgrim's Progress,' the ' Faerie Queen,' are all of
them true dreams; only the sleep of the men to whom
they came was the deep, living sleep which God sends,
with a sacredness in it as of death, the revealer of
secrets. . . .
"I think that the central man of all the world,
as representing in perfect balance the imaginative,
moral, and intellectual faculties, all at their highest,
is Dante."
CHAPTER II
THE CANZONIERE
i. CONTENTS
WE have seen that the " Vita Nuova " consists
of a medley of prose and verse, and there is a
general agreement that the commentary is of later
origin than the poems which it elucidates. The latter
are, in fact, only specimens of Dante's lyrical muse
relating directly or indirectly to his love for Beatrice.
Besides those pieces of which she is the subject it is
evident from his own statements that he wrote others,
some of which were addressed to the first lady of
defence, and some to the gentle lady who consoled
him. It is a reasonable inference also that he made
love to the second lady of defence partly, if not
entirely, by sending her songs and sonnets. Then
there were the young gentlewoman of Lucca, the
perhaps legendary mountain-maid, and the bold
Lisetta, who may be suspected of sharing his in-
definite poetical attentions. Lastly, in the " De Vul-
gari Eloquentia " he speaks of himself as par excellence
a preacher of righteousness, and it depends upon
the date of the treatise whether he points to the
191
192 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
"Commedia" or to shorter poems preceding that
composition which were distinctively ethical.
The Canzoniere represents the whole of Dante's
surviving lyrical poetry, which he has not himself
"edited." It seems needless to annotate the poems
of the "Vita Nuova" individually, since the poet has
performed this task with a minuteness and perspicuity
that leaves nothing to be desired. It is partially for
that reason that those poems seem so much easier
than many others as to which we have not the
advantage of Dante's own piloting. He himself recog-
nizes the difficulty of the first canzone in the " Con-
vivio," the literal sense of which is by no means
obvious, while its application to philosophy would
have occurred to no one but for his ingenious gloss.
Very few now believe that this and other poems of the
class were originally intended to bear that construc-
tion. They were love-poems, neither more nor less,
having for their subject the virtuous and beautiful
lady or ladies, who for a while took Beatrice's place in
Dante's heart, and a study of the second canzone will
show that the sentiments expressed in it are exactly
similar to those the poet was accustomed to avow with
reference to Beatrice herself. The result is that it is
often, and indeed usually, impossible to allocate poems
outside the " Vita Nuova " and the " Convivio " to
Beatrice or one of her rivals on the ground of internal
evidence. It has been assumed that Dante invariably
wrote of Beatrice in the reverent manner that char-
acterizes the " Vita Nuova," but this cannot be proved,
and it may be that in the heat of passion he resented
THE CANZONIERE 193
her coolness and her cruelty in effusions of a different
sort from the select compositions he deemed worthy
of embalmment. But there is reason for surmise that
it was rather the second love that provoked him to
intemperate utterance.
It is well to approach the Canzoniere with an
open mind, unbiassed by preconceived ideas of Dante
as a person of inflexible virtue, sternly observant of
the sins of others, and himself capable of committing
none but the most venial and almost laughable errors.
In this medley of poems we must be prepared to see
him discover certain aspects of himself with a candour
not to be found elsewhere. In the " Vita Nuova "
his purpose is to deify Beatrice, in the " Convivio " to
exalt philosophy, in the " Commedia " to justify the
ways of God to men. In all three works he some-
times raises the veil that conceals an intensely passion-
ate nature, but none the less he is bound by the
conditions of his undertakings, and by a self-imposed
ordinance, to exercise considerable reserve. In the
Canzoniere Dante has more liberty, and dons his
true colours. The poems show us the real man as he
was before the chastening hand of Providence re-
claimed him from the faults and follies of imagination,
if not of experience. They bring out in startling relief
a number of traits but faintly adumbrated in those
writings in which, at the price of sincerity, he seeks
to harmonize his life; and so it is not too much to
say that the Canzoniere is a hammer of illusions.
i 9 4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
2. POEMS RELATED TO THE " VlTA NUOVA "
Among the crowd of compositions are some imme-
diately related to the " Vita Nuova," the most con-
spicuous being undoubtedly Canzone XIII, which
touches it at three points. The poem is a palinode to
one that might have followed n or in; and, to all
appearance, it was indited on the occasion recorded in
xiv, when Dante, convinced of the hopelessness of
his passion, recurred in thought to the date of its
inception, when joy and gladness were the con-
comitants of love, though even there were voices
prophesying ill.
In xiv of the " Vita Nuova " Dante's state, when
overcome by despair, is represented as one of com-
plete paralysis, from which it is only a step to death.
Here he talks of breathing his last sigh; his heart is
as good as dead, and to the middle of that dead heart
his soul has withdrawn as to its last refuge, from
which it is on the eve of departing. There is, there-
fore, a tolerably close correspondence between the
account contained in xiv of the " Vita Nuova " and
that here given.
The chief interest of the poem, however, lies in the
reminiscences of the earliest phases of Dante's attach-
ment to Beatrice. It is not quite clear whether the
expression " when Love opened them [the beauteous
eyes] " is an allusion to the awakening of Beatrice in
in, though it probably is. The canzone, in general,
looks back to the circumstances narrated in n, of
THE CANZONIERE 195
which it supplies a rather different version. There it
is the "animal spirit" that reassures the Spirits of
Vision ; here it is the eyes of the beauteous lady that
communicate with Dante's, promising to them delight,
and to the heart peace.
In the fifth stanza, which resumes the topic, we are
struck with the almost complete identity of the phrase,
" the book of the mind," with " the book of my
memory " in the proem of the " Vita Nuova." " My
small person " means that Dante was a boy at the
time. He was, as we know, eight years of age, whilst
Beatrice was rather younger. This proves that the ex-
pression " came into the world " refers not to the
birth of the lady, but to that of her image, which is
described in the preceding stanza as " sitting in his
mind." This image was born when " the great
beauty," which was to cause him so much grief, be-
came manifest to him. 1
The "greatest spirit that trembled so violently" is,
of course, the Spirit of Life. In the " Vita Nuova "
this spirit utters the first cry, but here he shudders at
a voice that penetrates his " most secret chamber."
The term " virtue," as employed in this and the suc-
ceding stanza, is equivalent to " spirit," as used in
the third stanza, and so frequently in the "Vita
Nuova." "That virtue which has most nobility" is
the faculty of vision. In the " Convivio " 2 it is called
la virtii visiva, and the pleasure on which it looks is
the lady's fair face more especially her eyes and her
smile. 3 The Spirits of Vision are not stated in the
1 1. 71. - iii, 9. 3 Canz. ii, 55-9.
196 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
"Vita Nuova " to have entertained forebodings it is
the Natural Spirit that is perturbed. The former,
however, carry messages to the mind. Here the
faculty of vision addresses her companions, telling them
that there would arrive in the room of one whom she
saw the " beauteous form " that has already excited
her fears. " One whom I saw " alludes to the lady's
bodily presence; the "beauteous form" corresponds
with the mental image mentioned in the fourth stanza,
the purport of which justifies the apprehensions ex-
pressed at the outset of the affair. The image, as it is
presented there, had undergone a notable change
since the time when it was of noble virtue always. 1
This was inevitable, as the lady herself had changed.
For " the noble and laudable demeanour " that had
characterized her girlhood had been substituted gabbo.
The mocking words of the image are an echo of the
ridicule of the " beauteous thing " that had shown no
pity. 2
Let us now turn to Sonnet XXXV, which treats of
the same theme Beatrice's scorn of Dante, hisgaMato
affanno. This is evidently one of a family of sonnets,
two of which have been included in the "Vita Nuova."
Compared with them it reveals marks of inferiority,
which rendered it inadmissible in that delicate, unde-
filed compilation. In the " Vita Nuova " Dante either
praises Beatrice, or, as in Sonnets VII and VIII,
mildly reproaches her. He does not accuse her of
heartlessness, as in Canzone XII, nor of treachery, as
in that poem and here. Nor again, iu the "Vita
1 " Vita Nuova," n. - 11. 91-2.
THE CANZONIERE 197
Nuova," does he testify against himself, as he does in
this place, that " severed from reason and virtue," he
" follows desire as his guide." In the second quatrain
his outer and inner vision are described as dazzled,
the one by what is shown of his lady's charms, the
latter by what is suggested. Comment is hardly
needed, but we may recall the picture in in of the
"Vita Nuova": Beatrice nude in the arms of Love,
save that she is lightly wrapped in a crimson robe;
and the conclusion of Canzone XX, with its allusion
to the dolce porno.
Comparison of this sonnet with xiv of the " Vita
Nuova " raises a suspicion that the story of the wedding
party is partly, if not wholly, allegorical. The "friendly
person " may be none other than Desire. In the last
line pieta, as often in Italian poetry, signifies " sorrow,"
and the expression " sorrow betrayed by compassion "
refers to the good intentions of Dante's friend in
conducting him into the presence of his lady, which
worked woe.
Sonnet XXXIII shows Dante highly indignant at
the untoward result of his experiment, which has
made him the butt of universal laughter. He curses
the day he first saw the light of his lady's eyes ; he
curses his pains in composing finished and beautiful
poems, that the world may ever praise her; he curses
his own stubborn mind in harbouring what is killing
him her beautiful and wicked image. Witte and
others have doubted the authenticity of this sonnet,
which one codex assigns to Cino of Pistoia. Two
others, the " Laurentian " and " Riccardian," give it to
198 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Dante, and Fraticelli is surely right in claiming it for
him. It appears to have been indited on the same
occasion as Canzone XIII and Sonnet XXXV. With
the latter it shares the phrase " traitor eyes," while the
state of affairs recorded in the second and third
stanzas of the former practically coincides with the
description of the lady alighting on the crest of the
poet's heart to draw forth his soul.
To the same cycle belongs, perhaps, Sonnet XXXIX,
in which the ardour of the lover is contrasted with the
coldness of the lady. Her desire reposes in a frozen
lake, his in love's fire. Even more striking is the
comparison a reminiscence of Ovid's story of Clytie
(" Met." IV, 256, etc.) in which he expresses his sense
of the utter futility of his quest: "Not even she who
turns to behold the sun, and changing keeps un-
changing love, had such bitter fortune as I." The
poem acknowledges not only the futility, but the
fatuity of his passion. He is so entranced with his
torment that no other pleasure ventures to present
itself. The same contradiction appears in Ballad III,
where the metaphor of a lake is again used. In that
little poem Dante declares that love is killing him,
and that death is hard, but he has more fear of feeling
love less. From the beautiful eyes shines a light into
the midst of his mind, and his soul is content. But
straightway swoops a shaft, and ere it be quenched it
has drained from his heart a lake.
In Sonnet XXVII, when a gentle light is shed
from his lady's eyes, things are seen man cannot por-
tray they are so high and strange. But the vision
THE CANZONIERE 199
inspires fear, and Dante says to himself he will never
return to it. Thereafter he repents, and does return,
encouraging his timorous eyes to confront their victor.
'Tis vain. On arrival his eyes are closed, and the
desire that has brought them thither is extinct.
" Therefore," he concludes, " may Love provide for my
state ! "
These compositions cannot be proved to refer to
Beatrice, but kinship is established between them
and Sonnet XXXV, of which she is almost certainly
the subject, by the similarities of the ideas, as well as
verbal resemblances. (Compare 1. 9 of Sonnet XXVII
with 11. 3 and 4 of Sonnet XXXV, and the first two
lines of Sonnet XXXV with 1. 7 of Sonnet XXXIX.)
In v of the "Vita Nuova" Dante mentions that
in order to strengthen the impression that the lady
whom he used as a screen was the real object of his
devotion, he wrote for her certain little things in
rhyme, which it was not his intention to copy in that
particular book, which treated of the most gentle
Beatrice. Are there any poems in the Canzoniere
that can be reasonably connected with this equivoque?
It is doubtful. At first sight Sonnet XLVIII seems
to answer the requirements of the case. In the "Vita
Nuova" ' Dante states that the lady quitted the city
and went to a very distant country. Here he speaks
of his lady's " beauteous aspect " as having been taken
from him, and of himself as sighing and weeping, so
distant from her pretty face. He is afflicted because
he does not see her as he was wont. These sentiments
200 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
are obviously appropriate to a situation created by the
removal of a girl the poet professes to adore. Now
let the reader turn to the fifth stanza of Canzone XX,
which was confessedly written after Dante's exile, and
he will find almost identical phrases. The two poems
are evidently en rapport, and Bartoli's scepticism
regarding the genuineness of the sonnet is unnecessary.
He points out that it is characteristic of Cino to
begin with a conditional clause, and he parallels the
conclusion with Cino's line:
Tutto ch' altrui aggrada a me disgrada.
These reasons do not appear cogent. The attribu-
tion of the sonnet to Cino is purely conjectural, and
unsupported by manuscript authority. Dante and
Cino belonged to the same school of poetry, and the
idea expressed at the conclusion may rank as one of
its commonplaces. The same remark will apply to the
method of commencing.
Some suppose that Canzone XVI was written for
the lady of defence, and on the very occasion referred
to in ix of the " Vita Nuova." Dante, it will be
recollected, had occasion to set out from Florence
and travel in the direction of the place in which she
was residing, though his destination was not so remote.
He suffers great anguish of mind, because he is going
farther and farther away from the scene of his bliss.
In the canzone he represents his heart as assailed on
both sides on one side by the memory of the past,
and on the other by longing for the lovely country he
has left. He adds that he cannot long maintain the
THE CANZONIERE 201
defence, unless it (the defence) comes from the lady to
whom he writes. It has been argued that the gentil
Madonna cannot be Beatrice on account of the tone
of the poem, which borders on sensuality, "hardly
veiled by the customary phraseology of poetical con-
vention.'' *
It is certainly true that there are sundry expressions
in the poem that lend themselves to double entendre,
For instance, in the third stanza he tells his " sweet
hope " that if she is minded to put off the fulfilment
of his wish, she must know that he can wait no longer,
being at the end of his resources. Dante, however,
may allude to the dismay which he experienced on
her departure. The poet desires the lady's return, and
the " delay " may be explained with reference to that.
In the course of the journey Love appears with the
tidings so che il suo rivenire non sara;* until that
moment, therefore, Dante had expected to see her
again. We have spoken of double entendre. In vn
of the " Vita Nuova " it is plainly stated that " the
immediate occasion" of Sonnet II was his lady; and
a number of phrases in Canzone XVI suggest that he
is really thinking of Beatrice, e.g., "You are she whom
I love the most." The undercurrent of sensuality is
largely inferential. Allowing that it is present, the
argument amounts to little, since we have seen that in
Sonnet XXXV Dante confesses that he follows the
guidance of Desire.
Frankly, we believe that the subject of the canzone
is neither Beatrice nor the lady of defence, but some
1 Carducci. - "Vita Nuova," IX.
202 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
fair one with whom he fell in love after his banish-
ment from Florence. The sentiments to which he
owns at the commencement are precisely those which
befit an exile, 1 and that Dante loved at least one lady
after Florence "had cast him forth from her sweet
bosom," is proved by Canzoni XI and XX. We are
of opinion that this poem belongs to the same series,
which probably includes many others. On this point
more will be said presently. What is the sense of the
expression, " wherefore I hold myself great" in 1. 48?
The phrase may receive some illustration from Son-
net XXX. Two ladies descend on the apex of Dante's
mind to discourse on love. One has courtesy and
worth, and prudence and honesty; the other, beauty,
seductive charm, and graceful manners. Beauty and
Virtue propose a question to the understanding how
a heart can stand between two ladies with perfect
love. Dante's answer is that Beauty can be loved for
delight, and Virtue for high achievement. This we take
to mean that a chivalrous love inspires a man to self-
mastery and great performances, even as the trouba-
dour sings:
For indeed I know
Of no more subtle passion under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought and amiable words,
And courtliness and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man. 2
These words would aptly describe Dante's feelings
1 Cf. "Purg."viii, 1-6.
2 Chaytor, " Troubadours of Dante," p. xxii.
THE CANZONIERE 203
towards Beatrice, but if the saying, "wherefore I hold
myself great," is addressed to a lady to whom Dante
became attached after his banishment, it would seem
to mean that her friendship counteracted the sense of ^
humiliation, of degradation, of which we have evidence
in the " Convivio " and the " Commedia." In Can-
zone XI he tells us that he has no longer any desire
to return to Florence on account of a greater attrac-
tion elsewhere. Hence the difesa for which he craves
in Canzone XVI has been supplied.
We have discovered in the " Vita Nuova " indica-
tions that Dante's version of his relations with the
ladies is not strictly literal, that he was not quite con-
stant to Beatrice during her lifetime. In Sonnet XXX
he maintains that a man can love two women at the
same time, and with equal sincerity, but in a different
way. Sonnet XXXVI suggests that Dante, in one of
his moods, regarded his love for Beatrice as similar to
that which he might feel for any other woman. In this
poem he casts the blame on the invincible might of
Eros, against which it is as vain to strive as it is for
ignorant folk to set bells pealing in the hope of
assuaging a tempest. The date of the composition is
unknown. It is not impossible that it was written as a
kind of apology for the lapse before-mentioned, and is
the " Sermo Calliopeus " of Epistle IV. This sonnet
is so utterly unlike anything to be found in the " Vita
Nuova" that it seems worth while to cite Dean
Plumptre's translation of it.
I have with Love in contact close been thrown
From the ninth year the sun did mark for me,
204 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
And know how he now curb, now spur may be,
And how beneath him men may smile and groan.
Who strives with him, with skill and strength alone,
Acts as he does, who, when the storm plays free,
Rings out a peal, as though the vaporous sea
And thunderous strife that music may atone.
Wherefore within the range of that his bow
Free choice to act hath not his freedom true,
So that our counsels vain dart to and fro.
Well with new spur in flank he may us prick,
And each new pleasure he before us lays,
We needs must follow, of the old love sick.
In Canzone XI (11. 38-40, 82-4), the bondage of
love is the central idea. Dante lived to revise the
opinion that there is no freewill in love, as one may
see by consulting the eighteenth canto of the " Purga-
torio" (11. 61-72).
When the poet lost his first lady of defence he
endeavoured to substitute another, and thrust his
attentions on a maiden in such a way as to cause her
annoyance and provoke undesirable gossip. It seems
probable that Sonnet XLV was indited to console the
victim. He tells us that a sensible lady ought not to
allow herself to be troubled by the coarseness of the
coarse, or the words of the wicked, but believe that
her good fame cannot be denied, being conscious that
truth did not occasion the rumour. She is like a rose
among thorns, and pure gold within the fire, and so
he counsels her to let fools talk as they will. Her
reputation will gain more than if the miscreants
adopted the opposite procedure.
In xxn of the "Vita Nuova," Dante expatiates
on Beatrice's sorrow at the death of her father, and
THE CANZONIERE 205
concludes with two sonnets referring to the subject.
It would appear that he wrote other poems on the
same topic, namely, Sonnets XLI and LI. The former
bears an obvious resemblance to Sonnet XII, the
former of the two included in the "Vita Nuova," the
identical question being put to the mournful ladies
"Whence come ye ? " and information being requested ,
in like manner, concerning Beatrice.
The tercets are not felicitous, since Dante calls
attention to his own love-lorn and desperate plight,
and craves consolation from the kindly women. The
transition is so abrupt that one is almost tempted to
seek some other explanation of the ladies' grief than
sympathy with the bereaved, but the similarity between
this poem and Sonnet XII is so marked as to deter,
mine the occasion beyond just doubt. It seems not
unlikely that Dante, after writing this sonnet, discarded
it, and distributed its contents between Sonnets XII
and XIII. The " Vita Nuova " shows two commence-
ments of Sonnet XVIII; hence we may infer that the
poet occasionally felt dissatisfied with his work, and
that some of the compositions in the Canzoniere are
abbozzi, or rough sketches.
Sonnet LI is also related to xxn of the "Vita
Nuova," and it is worthy of note that the language of
the quatrains closely resembles that of Sonnet XIII,
the difference being that the former is applied to
Beatrice and the latter to Dante. In the "Vita
Nuova," Dante's address to the ladies is assigned to
Sonnet XII, and their reply to Sonnet XIII, while
Sonnet LI is bipartite, the poet's speech being com-
206 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
prised in the quatrains and the ladies responding in
the tercets. Such dialogues are very infrequent in
Dante's sonnets, the only other example that occurs
to us being in Sonnet L.
Canzone XVII, in which Dante apostrophizes Death
and beseeches him to spare his lady, is manifestly re-
lated to xxin of the "Vita Nuova," in which the
poet describes his delirium. The whole tone and
spirit of the poem are in complete accord with the
sentiments expressed in the narrative, but we may call
special attention to the concluding lines of the first
stanza :
To thee it needs must be I turn my face,
Painted in fashion of a person dead.
I come to thee, as to a person pitiful, etc.
In the "Vita Nuova" Dante tells Death that he
must be gentle, and observes "Already I wear thy
hue." Again, in the fourth stanza, Dante sees the
heavens open and the angels of God descending to
bear away the holy soul of her "in whose honour they
sing up there." This passage not only accords with
Canzone II, but is an echo of Canzone I. The ode
is an extremely fine one, steeped in subdued passion
and tender melancholy. It would therefore have been
quite in place in the "Vita Nuova," but Dante pre-
ferred Canzone II, which deals with a later moment
when the unreality of the vision had become apparent
to him.
In marking the various stages of Dante's love it has
been pointed out that from xvm of the " Vita
Nuova," Beatrice reassumes her angelic character by
THE CANZONIERE 207
a process of trasumanar. 1 In n he had called her
questa angiola; and Sonnets XI, XV, and XVI, ex-
hibit her no more as gabbatrice, mocking his sorrow,
but as semi-divine and wholly benevolent. To this
set, apparently, belongs Sonnet XXIX, which is so
exceptionally beautiful that it is surprising room was
not found for it in the " Vita Nuova." It is precious
not only as a token of Dante's higher and better self,
but as a pretty picture of old Florence. Rossetti thus
translates :
Last All Saints' holy-day, even now gone by,
I met a gathering of damozels ;
She that came first, as one doth who excels,
Had Love with her, bearing her company ;
A flame burned forward through her steadfast eye,
As when in living fire a spirit dwells;
So, gazing with the boldness which prevails
O'er doubt, I knew an angel visibly.
As she passed on, she bowed her mild approof
And salutation to all men of worth,
Lifting the soul to solemn thoughts aloof.
In heaven itself that lady had her birth,
I think, and is with us for our behoof:
Blessed are they who meet her on the earth.
3. FELLOWSHIP OF THE POETS
In xxiv of the " Vita Nuova," Beatrice is named
with Giovanna (or Primavera), a lady-love of Guido
Cavalcanti. There, too, Beatrice has precedence, but
Dante speaks of Giovanna in high terms, as if she
were in every way worthy of the companionship. In
J "Par." i, 70.
2 o8 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Sonnet XXXII Dante associates with himself and
Guido, another of the poetic brotherhood, Lapo Gianni,
and expresses a desire that they three and the ladies
to whom they are severally attached, might be trans-
ported by enchantment to a vessel, and sail whither
they would, dwelling in perfect concord and discours-
ing ever of love. In 1. 9 of the " Oxford Dante," we
find " Monna Lagia," where some editions have
" Monna Bice," as in Sonnet XIV. The former read-
ing may have better manuscript authority, but, on
general grounds, the latter appears preferable. It has
been supposed that Lagia was a sweetheart of Lapo,
but one of Cavalcanti's sonnets alludes to a Lagia in
connection with himself and another Guido, possibly
Guido Orlandi, and Bartoli holds that she was loved
by both Guidi, certainly by Cavalcanti. From what
has been stated, however, it seems pretty clear that
" Monna Vanna " was intended as Cavalcanti's partner,
and that Beatrice cannot have been the lady who was
" thirtieth on the roll," for Dante refers to the serven-
tese, in which he celebrated the sixty most beautiful
women in Florence, and he tells us distinctly that he
could only bring in Beatrice's name as the ninth.
" The thirtieth on the roll " must therefore have been
Lapo's lady, or there can be no question of pairs at
all. " Monna Bice " is Dante's lady and Giovanna's
mate in Sonnet XIV, and why not here also? To be
sure, Lagia may have been the lady of defence, but
this is less likely.
The term ragionar, though applicable to any kind
of talk, suggests that the discourse was to run on the
THE CANZONIERE 209
philosophy or casuistry of love. Illustrations of this
pastime abound in both the "Vita Nuova"and the
Canzoniere. The question propounded and resolved
in Sonnet XXX is a case in point: a similar matter is
discussed in Sonnet XXXIV. In one of his poems,
still extant, Cino confides to Dante that Love invites
him to enter upon a fresh adventure, but he fears to
comply, as he has proved his treachery and is smart-
ing from a former wound. Sonnet XXXIV answers
the inquiry, "What shall I do, Dante?" It takes the
form of a reproof. Dante remarks that he had deemed
himself altogether quit of Messer Cino's rhymes, and
another course became his barque already far from
the shore. However, he consents to lend his wearied
finger to the topic in order to acquaint his corre-
spondent that he has heard more than once that he
allows himself to be caught with every hook, and one
who is continually bound and loosed can be but
lightly grazed by Love's arrows.
One might have looked for a more sympathetic
consideration of poor Cino's dilemma, since Dante
himself had experienced the shiftiness and falsehood
of Love. In Sonnet XXXIII he declares that Love
often perjures himself, and Sonnet XL seems especially
to refer to the conduct of the god as related in ix,
x, and xn of the " Vita Nuova." He counsels Dante
to pay court to a second lady of defence, and, as the
consequence, the poet sustains a severe rebuff. He
then advises him to approach Beatrice, and the result
is gabbo. In Sonnet XL Dante shows he has lost all
confidence in his master, and admonishes his rhymes
p
2io HANDBOOK TO DANTE
that if a plausible stranger presents himself, not to
listen to him as the lord who inspires ladies with
tenderness. There is nothing in his utterances that is
a "friend of truth." He then proceeds: "But if by
his words ye be moved to approach your lady, dally
not." These words, as it seems to us, anticipate the
advice that Love tenders in xn of the "Vita Nuova,"
and bore fruit in Ballad I.
Ultimately Dante degrades Love from his status as
a god or angel, to that of " an accident in a substance."
The philosophical exposure of the fraud in the "Vita
Nuova" has its counterpart in Sonnet XXXVIII,
where we are again assured that Love is not a thing
in itself a substance with a body and visible form.
Rather, he says, it is a passionate desire, a pleasure in
beauty bestowed by nature. The essence of Love was,
as we have seen, the supreme problem of the poets of
the dolce stil nuovo, and doubtless it would have been
the staple of discourse, had Dante's wish been realized
and the six friends found themselves in congenial
seclusion on the boundless sea.
The bards of that particular school composed a
brotherhood, as sharing the same views and methods.
In in of the "Vita Nuova," Dante tells us that he
sent his first sonnet to many of the most famous poets,
receiving various replies. He does not tell us that one
was from his namesake Dante of Majano, who was
older and an adherent of Guittone and that it was
unkind.
At some period Dante experienced a dearth of in-
telligent and interested friends, and communicated his
THE CANZONIERE 211
sense of solitude to Cino of Pistoia in Sonnet XLVI.
We do not know whether the poem was written before
or after his banishment, but it seems not improbable
that his scornful words were aimed at Florence.
" Since," he says, " I find none to talk with me of the
lord whom we serve, both you and I, I must needs
satisfy the great desire I have of uttering good
thoughts." And he goes on to state that the only
reason for his long silence is the bad place he is in.
It is so bad that " the good finds none that will give
lodging to it." " There 's not a woman here, to whose
face Love will come, nor yet a man that will sigh for
him; any one who did so would be called a fool."
" Ah, Messer Cino," he concludes, " how times have
changed, to our detriment and that of our songs, since
the good here is so little harvested."
4. MORAL POEMS
What the ladies of Florence were like in Dante's
day is set forth with much plainness in the twenty-
third canto of the " Purgatorio," ' where Forese Donati
testifies :
So much more dear and pleasing is to God
My little widow whom I so much loved,
As in good works she is the more alone ;
For the Barbagia of Sardinia
By far more modest in its women is
Than the Barbagia I have left her in.
O brother sweet, what wilt thou have me say?
A future time is in my mind already,
To which this hour will not be very old,
1 11. 91-105.
212 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
When from the pulpit shall not be interdicted
To the unblushing womankind of Florence
To go about displaying breasts and paps.
What savages were e'er, what Saracens,
Who stood in need to make them covered go,
Of spiritual or other discipline?
But if the shameless women were assured
Of what swift Heaven prepares for them already,
Wide open would they have their mouths to howl.
The Canzoniere contains nothing so scathing as
this terrible denunciation, but it affords evidence of a
low standard of morals among both men and women.
Canzone X is a lecture to the Florentine ladies, the
purpose of which is to chide very gently their
wanton ways, and to warn them against the worth-
lessness of their admirers. This worthlessness is ex-
posed only in one particular (in alcun membro)
namely, avarice, but Dante asserts that all vices meet
in each of those he censures, and that is practically
everybody. The Canzone opens with some instruction
respecting the place of beauty in the economy of
things. By an ancient decree of Love it was formed
for virtue. Beauty was given to women, and virtue to
men, whilst to Love was given the power of making
two one. Women ought not therefore to love, but to
cover what measure of beauty is vouchsafed them, for
that is not virtue, which was its mark. He holds it a
fine renunciation on the part of a woman to dismiss
beauty. But the ladies of Florence transgress Love's
decree. They have a vile desire to attract men by dis-
playing their charms.
Dante turns to the men. They, he says, have ban-
THE CANZONIERE 213
ished virtue, and are no longer men, but beasts that
resemble men. The covetous man is a slave to a hard
master, and in danger of losing what he has amassed.
The want of measure that marks the gathering of
riches marks also the retention of them, and plunges
many into servitude. Death and fortune, what are they
doing that they do not unloose the purse-strings?
Reason should correct, but, alas! reason is bound-
over-ridden. Addressing the sons of greed, the poet
exclaims: "False animals, cruel to yourselves and
others! Ye see men wandering naked o'er hill and
marsh, before whom vice has fled; and ye keep vile
dirt clothed ! "
The miser cannot give. He converts giving into
selling by delay, by vain-glorious countenance or
gloomy look, and he sells dear. The conclusion is
that she is not to be believed who holds it good to be
beautiful so as to be loved by such people. Under
such conditions beauty is a misfortune, and love
bestial appetite. Perish the woman who dissociates
her beauty from natural goodness for that reason, and
believes Love to be without the garden of Reason.
(There are many passages in Dante's writings in
which he tilts against avarice, but the reader should
especially compare with this poem " Convivio," i, 9;
" Paradiso," xi, 1-12.)
In the tornata Dante tells his song that there is a
countrywoman of theirs, who is beautiful, wise, and
courteous, and bids it repair to her, explain its errand,
and then follow her directions. It is possible that
Dante had observed a tendency in her to follow the
2i 4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
fashion and wished to prejudice her against the rest
of mankind in his own interest as a lover, but more
probably his notion is to exalt her as a noble exception
and pattern.
The lady may have been the " Monna Vanna " of
Sonnets XIV and XXXII, Bianca and Cortese being
complimentary like Primavera (" Vita Nuova," xxiv).
Lines 151-3 embody the same idea as the cryptic
lo qualefu chiamatada molti Beatrice > i quali non sapeano
che si chiamare of the " Vita Nuova " that is, the
names are uttered without a thought as to their mean-
ing or fitness for the persons to whom they are applied.
Primarily the term " white " may refer to Giovanna's
complexion. In Canzone XI (1. 66) and Canzone XX
(1. 51) Dante's ladies have blonde treccie, and fair hair
is usually accompanied by a fair skin; nor may we
forget that one of Dante's most beautiful similes is
that wherein the transition from the ruddy atmosphere
of Mars to the white light of Jupiter is compared to a
bianco, donna:
When her face
Is from the load of bashfulness unladen ! '
In a secondary sense whiteness, as we have already
seen, denotes purity. As for Giovanna, Dante must
have known from his well-thumbed Latin dictionary,
Uguccione's ' Magnae Derivationes," that the name
signified the Grace of God. Evidence of this appears
in the twelfth canto of the " Paradise " (11. 80-1):
O thou his mother, verily Joanna,
If this, interpreted, means as it is said.
1 " Par." xviii, 65.
THE CANZON1ERE 215
Lastly, as regards Cortese, Dante attached to the
term a different sense from that assigned to it by
" the wretched vulgarians." In the " Convivio "
(ii, n) he states that courtesy and honesty (or
honour) are identical, and in Sonnet XXX it is a
moral rather than a social quality. Is it possible that
we have here a clue to the personality of the Lady of
Pity, Dante's second love? In the "Vita Nuova" 1
she is gentle, beautiful, young, and wise; in the
" Convivio " 2 she is beautiful, wise, and courteous
the very epithets applied to Giovanna in Canzone X.
It is true that he speaks of this lady as molto donna of
Cavalcanti, 3 but she may have been molto donna of
Dante also one of his set. The Canzoniere in-
cludes a pretty rustic poem (Ballad IV), beginning:
Fresca rosa novella,
Piacente Primavera.
Bartoli gives this to Cavalcanti, but Cavalcanti's
loves, as far as his own poetry shows, were Pinella, Man-
detta, and Lagia. If the reading " Monna Lagia " be
retained in Sonnet XXXII, " Monna Vanna " may
represent Dante's sweetheart. Most of the poets of
the dolce stil nuovo had more than one, and we have
found reason to suspect that Dante was not always
faithful to Beatrice whilst she lived. He himself con-
fesses that he was not true to her after her death, and
then perhaps it was that Canzone X and Sonnet XXXII
were written.
But we have not yet done with the Barbagia.
1 xxxix. 2 Canz. i, 46-7.
3 " Vita Nuova," xxiv.
2i6 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Sonnet XLIV describes the adventure of a certain
Lisetta, who traverses the Way of Beauty intent on
storming the tower of Dante's heart. At the foot she
hears a voice that bids her depart. Above sits a lady,
who asks Love for the rod of authority, and at once
he gives it to her. Seeing herself dismissed from
Love's abode, Lisetta returns, the picture of shame.
The " Ottimo Comento " speaks of Lisetta as one of
Dante's loves, and Professor Barbi, in a brochure
printed for private circulation, conjectures that she
was the donna pietosa of the " Vita Nuova." If so,
she may have been Giovanna as well. The name
Giovanna, like Primavera, Bianca and Cortese, may
be fanciful only. It would appear so from its position
between Bianca and Cortese, unless indeed these are
mere adjectives, which should be printed without
capital letters.
The old reading in 11. 3 and u of Sonnet XLIV
was una donna, but " Lisetta " is found in eight of the
twelve MSS. containing the poem, and seems un-
questionably right. A reply commencing Lisetta voi
della vergogna sciorre was penned by Messer Aldo-
brandino Mezzabati of Padua the Ildebrandinus
Paduanus mentioned in the "De Vulgari Eloquentia" *
as the only writer in Venetia that endeavoured to use
the " curial " vulgar tongue in preference to his own
dialect.
Canzone XIX has much in common with Canzone
X. The subject is leggiadria, which may be rendered
politeness or good breeding. Dante announces him-
1 i, 14-
THE CANZONIERE 217
self as momentarily free from the shackles of love, and
seizes the opportunity to read the world a lesson on
conduct. As in Canzone X, he indicates a general
apostasy from the high standard of manners that
brought the word "courteous" into being; and just
as in the " Convivio " he traverses the popular con-
ception of a lady or gentleman as one who gives
largely, so here he denounces reckless extravagance,
luxury, and ostentation as heresy. The second stanza,
which is devoted to this aspect of the subject, con-
tains the unusual word missione, which means bounty,
and is found also in the "'Convivio." 1 It is borrowed
from the Provencal, and Sordello employs it in a
passage of his " Ensenhamen " on the proper exercise of
liberality, which it is more than likely Dante had in
his mind, since the troubadour insists el metre obs
mesura (" there is need of measure in giving "). This
stanza then combats the opposite vice to that which
Dante castigates in Canzone X, but he seems to have
regarded avarice and extravagance as different phases
of the same vice, namely, dismisura, or the misuse of
money. Those who transgress in either sense are
consigned to the same circle of hell. 2
In the third and fourth stanzas Dante treats of
another heresy. This is the notion that a gay and
careless exterior, coupled with commonplace ideas,
constitutes good breeding. Dante shows that super-
ficial charm is consistent with execrable traits. Many
gentlemen (so-called) do not love a loving lady, and
would not stir a foot to be a squire to any, but go to
1 iv, 27. 2 The fourth; see " Inf." vii.
218 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
snatch base pleasure, like a robber to his theft. Good
breeding in a cavalier 1 is equivocal; it is not pure
virtue, but virtue gone astray, and will not pass muster
with " honest people of spiritual life or habit that
holds to knowledge." The verb disviare is used by
Dante in Canzone II (also " Purgatorio," xvi, 82), and
he has a note upon it in the "Convivio," (iii, 3). For
the general idea of strayed virtue, we may compare
"Purgatorio," xvii, 85-139. Dante's attitude towards
cavaliers is unprejudiced (cf. " Convivio," i, 9), but at
best they are amateurs in virtue and learning. Here
the picture is unfavourable. The phrase "persons who
wear the semblance of man " takes us back to
Canzone X and forward to the commencement of the
"Convivio"; and similarly the apostrophe O falsi
cavalier, etc., recalls Falsi animali. The women are
not so far gone. They, at least, are not animals with-
out understanding.
Pure virtue is found in the poets who are the high
priests of Love. The sixth stanza has various remin-
iscences of Guinicelli's master ode, the simile of the
sun, the mention of the gentle heart, etc., proving that
pure virtue, in Dante's thought, is hardly distinguish-
able from love in the highest sense of the word. This
stanza bears evident marks of pride of intellect; for,
unlike the knights, content to be praised by the multi-
tude, the virtuous man, says Dante, esteems the praise
of uncultivated persons as little as their censure.
One distinction between pure and contaminated
1 As used in this context the term "cavalier" corresponds
as nearly as possible with our word "gallant."
THE CANZONIERE 219
virtue is in the matter of language. Here the poet
has naturally a great advantage over his rival, the
cavalier, and it would almost seem as if Canzone XIV
were written on purpose to demonstrate the superiority,
and to afford a specimen of good speech. In the tornata
the poet cautions his song to be on its guard, if invited
or detained by a cavalier. The stranger must be nar-
rowly scanned, in order to discover whether he be
qualified for its company; if not, he is to be quickly
forsaken, for good consorts always with good. " Have
nothing to do with the bad in understanding or ac-
complishment, since it was never accounted wisdom to
hold their part."
Dante is not opposed to the chivalrous ideal of
love, but to its desertion by the gentlemen of the day.
Canzone XIV is full of the notion of service, and
thus it stands related to Canzone XIX as obverse to
reverse. Still, it must not be regarded as a mere
academic performance, a model address commended
to the notice of the true gentleman. There are cer-
tain phrases that connect the ode with other poems,
and supply a clue to the possible subject. Lieve saria
may be compared with mi saria leve in Sonnet XLVIII
and lieve mi conterei in Canzone XX; and se merce
giovinezza mi toglie with non soffrir che costei per giovi-
nezza mi conduce a morte in Canzone IX.
Canzone IX, like Canzone XIV, is addressed to
men " the three least guilty of our land." This lan-
guage reminds us of what Ciacco says of Florence in
the sixth canto of the " Inferno " ' : " There are two
1 1. 72.
220 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
just men; but they are not understood there." It has
been conjectured that Cavalcanti was one of those just
men, and it is possible that Lapo Gianni, or Dante
himself, was the other. Who was the one that had
fallen into a mala settal Can it have been Forese
Donati ? Perhaps if the canzone was indited before
Dante's banishment, which we are inclined to question.
Of one thing we feel convinced, that the fault of
youth, which is so great a source of danger, is in the
lady, not in the lover, as has been sometimes assumed.
The idea, both here and in Canzone XIV, is that she
is too young to appreciate the force of Dante's passion,
not that she slights him as a boy. There is not the
least sign of immaturity in these highly philosophical
odes.
In none of the poems is the influence of Guinicelli
more clearly seen than in this canzone, with its
allusions to the heaven-born nature of Love and his
affinity to the Sun, his moral efficacy, etc. Dante is at
first only potentially a lover until desire is aroused by
the sight of a maid, whose image is mirrored in his
mind as in clear water, and he is all afire. This is
mainly the work of Love, who is seconded by the
lady's beauty, as the Sun might be by fire. The
" worthy subject " is undoubtedly the gentle heart,
but the metaphors are a little difficult to follow.
Segno seems to mean the mark to which a thing tends,
cf, " Purgatorio," xviii, 18-9: .
Then even as the fire doth upward move
By its own form, which to ascend is born. 1
1 Cf. also Canzoni X!T, 29; xx, 81; x, 17. The precise meta-
THE CANZONIERE 221
Canzoni XVIII and XX, and possibly Sonnet XLIX,
belong to the period of Dante's exile. They breathe
a passionate love of country and justice, and bitter
hatred of the dominant faction. Sonnet XLIX, the
authenticity of which is suspected, has all the appear-
ance of being political, though the person addressed
is probably Love, whom Dante often terms his master,
and i tuoi fedei are his servants the poets, who are
similarly designated in in, vin, of the "Vita
Nuova." Poetry stands silenced before the strife of
parties; she is cold, and naked, and affrighted. "The
slayer of justice " may be Corso Donati, leader of the
Neri, and "the grand tyrant" either the Pope or
Philip of France, whom Dante calls elsewhere a giant
and Goliath. 1 Donati wished to make himself tyrant
of Florence. This seems to us the most probable
explanation of the piece, though just conceivably the
sonnet may be an appeal to the Almighty (cf. " Purga-
torio," XX, 94-6). In that case the poem has a strik-
ing similarity to Milton's sonnet " On the late Massacre
in Piedmont."
Canzone XVIII is, to our mind, by far the most
splendid ode in the collection, and, as all the historical
allusions with the exception of two those to Pharaoh
and Jugurtha are to be found in the " Commedia,"
it was apparently written at a time when the latter
work, or preparations for it, had made some progress.
The canzone shows Dante in the maturity of his
phor is probably that of an ensign or banner to which troops
rally.
1 " Purg." xxxii, 152; Epistle vii, 8.
222 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
powers, and nothing in the " Commedia " is finer than
this superb panegyric of Florence, which expresses the
utmost reverence for her golden days, and the highest
hopes of her future, if she will but change her pilot.
She has to choose between fraternal peace and wolfish
rapacity. By the "sister" of 1. 3, Dante appears to
mean Pistoia, whence the Black and White factions
were imported into Florence; and the words "since
thou art joined to Mars," are seemingly an allusion to
the attack on Pistoia by the Florentine Black Guelfs
and the Lucchesi, under the captaincy of Moroello
Malaspina. Reference is made to this event in the
twenty-fourth canto of the " Inferno ": l
Mars draws up a vapour from Val di Magra.
Antenor is the second division of the ninth circle
of Hell, in which traitors to their country are punished :
see " Inferno," XXXII. The widowed lily the // tuo
fior of 1. 32 is an allusion to the arms of Florence
a red lily in a field of white. Cf. " Paradise," XVI,
152-
The lily
Never upon the spear was placed reversed.
It is called widowed, because Florence has lost the
" loyal Fabricii." Those who do not march against
the Bianchi are regarded, and punished, as traitors.
They are " the submerged " of the first stanza and the
tornata. Among the striking appeals, the most strik-
1 1. 145. The canzone, however, must have been composed
much later than 1305, unless the "Commedia" was begun long
before commonly supposed.
THE CANZONIERE 223
ing, perhaps, is that in which he bids Florence desire
the triumph of virtue, " so that the faith that lies hid
may rise again with Justice, sword in hand." This
figure of a resurrection recalls the expression in Sonnet
XLIX: "with thy right hand repay him who slays
Justice" and is an argument against the rejection of
the latter poem.
Great interest attaches to Canzone XX on historical
grounds. There has been some controversy on the
question whether Dante was guilty of the charge for
which he was banished. Lines 88-90 amount to an
admission that he was not free from blame, but, in
the face of his many protestations of innocence with
regard to Florence, it seems to us doubtful whether
in this passage he is speaking of any public crime. He
has annoyed his lady, and is content to die in exile,
provided that he is restored to her favour. This, we
think, is the interpretation of the entire poem. Love,
whose weapons have grown rusty from disuse, is to
console the poet for his evil days and the manifold
injustice to which he has been subjected. Love is his
master, and Love is eternal. The mighty potentate is
visited by three most beautiful and virtuous ladies in
great distress. The eldest is Right. Like another
Niobe, she rests on her hand, like a drooping rose,
and her bare arm, a column of grief, feels the tear
that falls from her face. With her are her daughter
and granddaughter. The three are supposed to repre-
sent various aspects of justice" natural disposition,
universal human law, and political law." l If we are
1 Gaspary, i, 247 (Bell).
224 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
guided by the " De Monarchia," we shall conclude
that they stand for right in the abstract (in mente Dei
divina voluntas, II, 2), applied right (jus in rebus,
ibid.}, and municipal laws (I, 14).
5. THE PARGOLETTA AND PIETRA PROBLEMS
Canzone XX, then, is not purely political, unless
we understand that Dante by " the beauteous mark of
my eyes," means Florence. This seems to us impos-
sible, as the hardships of his lot are precisely those
involved in his exile. Some believe that the subject
of Canzone XI is Florence, evidently on account of
what is said in the tornata, but it seems to us that the
very opposite conclusion should be drawn from the
passage, in which he declares that he can no longer
make war upon her, and that even if her cruelty re-
lents, he is no more free to return, because he is
chained to another spot. But he is not prevented from
repairing to the spot where his lady is; on the con-
trary, he gravitates thither perforce (stanza 3). This
is the chain that would, under any circumstances,
withhold his steps from Florence; and, though we
may detect some verbal inconsistency between the
third stanza and the tornata personally, we find none
the passion symbolized by the chain, whatever it
may represent, is avowedly an antidote to Dante's un-
availing love of country. It is perfectly clear that the
two Canzoni, XX and XI, refer to the same counter
attraction, which is evidently a person. Who was she
THE CANZONIERE 225
As far as can be gathered from Dante's own writings,
there was only one lady with whom his name was
connected after his banishment, i.e. Gentucca of Lucca,
who was to make that city pleasant to him. The lan-
guage in which Buonagiunta refers to her, suggests
youth, even extreme youth:
A maid is born and wears not yet the veil. 1
If we turn to a later passage in the " Purgatorio," in
which Beatrice chides Dante for his unfaithfulness,
we shall find that she hints at a succession of lapses
not merely his desertion to the Lady of Pity.
" Beatrice," says the "Ottimo Comento," 3 " tells him
that neither the damsel whom he calls Pargoletta in
his rhymes, nor Lisetta, nor that other mountain lady,
nor any other whatsoever, ought to have turned the
feathers of his wings in downward flight." The notion
that there was a mountain lady may perhaps have
been derived from Dante's description of Canzone XI
as montanina, but it does not follow from the fact
that the poem was written in the mountains, that the
lady resided there. To the same source may be
traced Boccaccio's statement that Dante fell in love
with a woman of Pratovecchio. Such assertions are
manifestly of a much lower order of credibility than
Dante's own admission as to the maid of Lucca.
On the whole, it seems likely that Beatrice refers to
this youthful lady when she uses the term pargoletta,
1 "Purg." xxiv, 43. ~ "Purg." xxxi, 55-60.
3 In a note on that passage.
Q
226 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
but there is one little difficulty. Buonagiunta speaks
of this affair, whatever it was, as future, whereas
Beatrice is talking of the past. At the time when
these cantos of the " Purgatorio " were written, it
must have been past, and although Dante is usually
observant of the fictitious date of the " Commedia"
1300 it is possible that in treating of his personal
history he forgot or ignored his ordinary practice.
His oldest biographers and commentators identify the
Lucchese maiden with the pargoletta. Boccaccio
says: "when he was living at Lucca, he often sighed
for a certain damsel whom he calls Pargoletta"; ' and
the " Anonimo Fiorentino," in a note on " Inferno," ii,
104, remarks: "After Beatrice's death he loved a
damsel of Lucca, whom he calls Pargoletta, whence
one of the ballads which he made for her begins:
/' mi son pargoletta bella et nova, et son venuta, etc."
The allusion is to Ballad VI.
We are here face to face with what is, beyond
doubt, the greatest crux of the Canzoniere the
subject or subjects of the amatory poems. Ballad X,
to judge from the " Convivio," 2 is concerned with the
Lady of Pity. With regard to the others, it is prob-
able that they relate to the pargoletta. This is
certainly the case with Sonnet XXVI, in which the
word occurs in 1. 2. We have seen that in Canzoni X
and XIV the youth of one or other of the parties
almost certainly that of the lady prevents Dante's
suit from speeding; we should therefore be disposed
1 " Milanesi," p. 14.
2 Canz. iii, 5; cf. Canz. ii, stanza 6.
THE CANZONIERE 227
to give both to the pargoletta, and with them Sonnet
XLVII, because, like Canzone XIV, it lays stress on
the service of love (cf. especially the expression io son
servente in the former with eaomi apparecchiato servo
umile in the latter). There is a great probability that
Canzoni XX and XI refer to the pargoletta, because
they were written, as the poems themselves show,
when Uante was an exile, and we have seen that
Sonnet XLVIII belongs to this set. All three also
make it manifest that Dante was living at a distance
from his lady. Now Canzone XII was pretty clearly
addressed to the same person as Canzone XI, since
the first stanza of the one practically reproduces the
fifth stanza of the other. Canzone XII is one of
the pietra poems, so called because in them Dante
compares his obdurate mistress to a stone. There is a
division of opinion as to whether the pietra and par-
goletta were one and the same, but it seems necessary
to identify them since Dante applied both terms to
the subject of Canzone XV (11. 13, 72). The other
pietra poems are Sestine I, II, III, IV, of which the
last two are generally believed to be spurious, and
Sonnet XXXI. Just as Beatrice appears to allude to
the pargoletta compositions, so she seems to touch
upon those in which Dante iterates the thought that
her rival is as hard as stone. In Canzone XV he asks
what will become of himself, and he answers that, as
the little maid has marble for a heart, he will become
a man of marble. Similarly, he states that his mind is
harder than stone in keeping a stern image of stone.
In the thirty-third canto of the " Purgatorio " (11. 75-6)
228 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
we find Beatrice saying to him, as if recalling these
sentiments:
But since I see thee in thy intellect
Converted into stone and stained with sin, etc.
Longfellow's translation here is hardly adequate.
The Italian vs,fatto di pietra, ed, impietrato, tinto, the
idea of petrification being expressed twice over. The
pietra poems are frankly sensual, the climax being
attained in Canzone XII, in which longings are
avowed that explain Beatrice's language:
So low he fell that all appliances
For his salvation seemed already short,
Save showing him the people of perdition.
On the other hand, the pargoletta poems, except
Canzone XV, which is also and pronouncedly of the
pietra class, are moral, and even spiritual in tone and
expression. Ballad VI might have been written of
Beatrice herself, and it must be allowed that the term
pargoletta would suit her very well as a little girl of
eight. The same remark may be passed on Ballad IX,
evidently a sister poem. Ballads VII and VIII are to
be referred rather to the cycle which comprehends the
sestine, a keyword of Sestina I being verde, and the
fifth stanza being specially akin. To this category,
too, belongs Sonnet XLII, with its notes of gaiety
and optimism. The trilingual Canzone XXI is zpietra
poem, the use of " thorn " as a metaphor serving as a
connecting link between it and Canzone XV, the
transitional ode.
It may be objected that Dante could not possibly
THE CANZONIERE 229
have written of the same person in such discrepant
terms as are found in Ballad VI and Canzone XII,
but he himself endeavours to reconcile a flagrant con-
tradiction between Canzoni II and III in the tornata of
the latter. No notice need be taken of the statement
of Amadi, a sixteenth-century Paduan writer, that the
pietra was really Madonna Pietra of the noble family
of the Scrovigni of Padua. There may or may not
have been such a woman, but there is no good reason
for associating her with these poems.
We have indicated two echoes of the Canzoniere
in the " Commedia," and it seems worth while to call
attention to a third. In Ballads VI and IX we meet
with the phrase mirar fiso ("to look steadfastly"). If
we turn to 11. 1-9 of the thirty-second canto of the
" Purgatorio," we shall find a transfiguration of this
phrase, which is not peculiar to Dante, but a com-
monplace of the dolce stil nuovo.
Sonnet XXVIII is a compendium of chapters xiv
and xv of the second book of the "Convivio," while
Sonnet XLIII is a recantation of the misapplication
of his muse to philosophy, and particularly apposite
to the second and fourth books of that learned
treatise.
6. A POETICAL DUEL
The Canzoniere concludes with a tenzonc what
is termed in old Scots a " flyting-match " between
Dante and Forese Donati. The latter was not the
Forese Donati who was a son of Manetto and a
brother of Gemma, Dante's wife, but a kinsman, the
2 3 o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
son of Simone and a brother of Corso Donati. Dante
and he were friends in youth, 1 and in the twenty-third
canto of the " Purgatorio " there is recorded an inter-
view between them, which points to their having
shared a loose kind of life. Forese, in particular,
appears to have been a glutton, and from the innuendo
contained in Sonnet LII one gathers that he was not
faithful to the wife whom he extols so highly in the
" Purgatorio." 2 The authenticity of these sonnets, once
questioned, may now be considered completely estab-
lished, but the precise meaning of them is not easily
grasped, and in several instances commentators and
translators have entirely mistaken it. The accusation
against Forese in Sonnet LII is that he neglects his
wife in a marital sense, and this charge is repeated at
the close of Sonnet LIV. A very different impression
would be obtained from Rossetti's translation that
Forese and his brothers were "nice brothers-in-law"!
The "Alaghier" of Forese's reply to Sonnet LII is
obviously the same person as the " Allaghieri " of his
reply to Sonnet LIV namely, Dante's father; Del
Lungo understands Dante himself. In Sonnet LIII
Dante rallies Forese on his love for starlings' breasts
and lambs' tails, and tells him that his skin will take
vengeance for the flesh; that is, he will get the itch.
In Sonnet LIV he tells him that he is a thief, and
raises doubts as to his legitimacy.
O Bicci, pretty son of who knows whom,
Unless thy mother, Lady Tessa, tell,
See p, 12, 2 xxiii, 91 et seq.
THE CANZONIERE 231
Thy gullet is already crammed too well,
Yet others' food thou needs must now consume, etc.
Forese retorts :
Right well I know thou'rt Alighieri's son.
And he proceeds to taunt Dante with his failing to
resent injuries, and his omission to perform some act
of vengeance. It has been supposed that this is an
allusion to the murder of his relative, Geri del Bello,
which is mentioned in the twenty-ninth canto of the
" Inferno."
We must be content with a very brief reference to
the translations of the " Seven Penitential Psalms "
and the " Profession of Faith," which are all in terza
rima. There appears to be hardly any reason, internal
or external, for connecting the metrical versions of the
psalms with Dante. They are of no great excellence
and Witte could not find them in any manuscript:
On the other hand, he discovered the " Profession of
Faith " in a very large number of codices to which the
name of Dante was attached. Scartazzini suggests that
it was a juvenile exercise, but from the opening words
it would appear to have been the work of Dante's old
age. The rest of the poem is a paraphrase of the
Creed, the Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the
Seven Deadly Sins, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ave
Maria.
CHAPTER III
THE "CONVIVIO"
i. TITLE
UNTIL a comparatively recent date, the title of
this treatise was usually given as " Convito." The
fashion was started by Biscioni in his Florentine
edition of 1723, and may be said to have held its
ground till the publication of Witte's " Dante-For-
schungen," vol. ii, in 1879. There is not the slightest
"difference in the meaning of the two words " Convito "
and " Convivio," both of which occur in the treatise. It
is merely a question of which has most support from the
manuscripts, and Witte produced convincing evidence
that the best texts are overwhelmingly in favour of
" Convivio."
Both " Convivio " and "Convito" signify "a ban-
quet," and the title may be regarded as in some sort
a translation of the Greek word ffvpiroator, as used by
philosophical writers. Dante explains in what sense he
intended it to be taken in the first chapter of Book I,
in which he tells us that he proposes to discuss fourteen
canzoni. These will form the meat, and the bread will
consist of the exposition. Dante's object is to satisfy
THE "CONVIVIO" 233
those who hunger for knowledge, but for various
reasons are unable to cater for themselves. The chief
obstacle is the fact that, as things are, it is impossible
to acquire philosophy or science without proficiency
in Latin. Many worthy persons princes, barons,
cavaliers, and ladies lack that accomplishment, and
are therefore debarred from participating in those in-
tellectual pleasures, to which Latin is the key. In the
present treatise Dante breaks down the middle wall
of partition by adopting the vulgar tongue as the
medium of instruction, thus rendering its contents
more widely accessible than if he had followed the
ordinary rule (which he obeyed in the case of the
"De Monarchia," and the "De Vulgari Eloquentia")
of employing Latin for scientific and philosophical
purposes. The " Convivio " is, in fact, the first work
of the kind in Italian prose.
2. DATE
With regard to the date of the composition, it seems
probable that it was written, not continuously, but in
instalments. Dante does indeed state in the work
itself, that it was produced after the period of gioven-
tute, 1 that is, after his forty-fifth year or 1310. But
there are allusions in Book IV, which prove that it
was written earlier. Thus in chapter vi he addresses
Charles II of Naples and Frederick of Aragon: " And
I say to you, Charles and Frederick, Kings." Now the
former of those potentates died on 5th March, 1309
234 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Similarly in chapter iii he uses the expressions :
" Frederick of Suabia, the last Emperor and King of
the Romans, I say last with respect to the present
time, notwithstanding that Rudolph, and Adolphus
and Albert have been elected since his death and
those of his descendants." Hence it is evident that
Dante was not aware of the coronation of Henry VII,
which took place at Aix on 6th January, 1309. On
the other hand, this fourth book cannot have been
written before 1307, since, in chapter xiv he speaks
of Gherardo da Camino as dead, and Gherardo died
on 5th March, 1307. There is no doubt, therefore,
that Book IV, or certain passages in it, were in exist-
ence before the date assigned to the treatise as a
whole. Some even go so far as to argue that parts of
the work were written before Dante's banishment, and
it is not impossible that he incorporated in it a number
of notes and comments that he had jotted down during
the last decade of the thirteenth century.
The truth is apparently that in the course of the
year 1310 there occurred to Dante the idea of writing
a philosophic commentary on fourteen of his canzoni
as a kind of sequel to the " Vita Nuova," which con-
tains similar elements. He then elaborated the first
book, which was to serve as an introduction, and
utilized the materials that he had collected, probably
for general reasons, in the three succeeding books.
Then came the invasion of Italy by Henry VII,
which distracted Dante from his task, and by the
time he was ready to resume it, he had either lost all
relish for the occupation, or was eager to press on
THE "CONVIVIO" 235
with the great poem which was to render his name
immortal. Anyhow, the treatise was never finished,
and of the fourteen canzoni, of which he promises an
interpretation, only three are provided with a com-
mentary.
3. MOTIVES
It will appear extraordinary that Dante should have
chosen this mode of initiating his countrymen into
the mysteries of science. We have seen of what his
canzoni consist. A few are ethical, one or two deal in
a more or less formal fashion with Platonic con-
ceptions of love, but most of them are erotic, and
some downright sensual. It was on these amatory
poems that it was Dante's good pleasure to impose a
philosophical meaning. Why? Obviously, because
he considered that they redounded little to his credit,
and therefore it was politic to explain away their
plain purport, which even a fool could not mistake,
by representing them as allegorical. Dante hardly
troubles to disguise his motive. At the close of the
second chapter of Book I, he observes: "I was
moved by fear of infamy and desire of bestowing
learning, which none other can truly bestow. I fear
the infamy of having been led away by so much
passion, as any one reading the afore-named canzoni
conceives to have been master in me. Which infamy
is entirely arrested by my present style of speaking,
which shows that the motive has been not passion,
but virtue. I intend also to show the true meaning of
them, which can be discerned by none, unless I make
236 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
it known, because it is hidden under a mask of alle-
gory. And this will afford not only rare pleasure in
the hearing, but subtle instruction both in thus speak-
ing and in thus understanding the writings of others."
From the tenor of the two succeeding chapters we
may judge that Dante was influenced by a third
motive, or what may be termed an extension of the
second motive. He was not only afraid that the con-
tents of some of his poems might convey an un-
favourable impression of his moral character, but he
was haunted by a feeling that his personality and
writings met with less respect than was due to them
from those and they were nearly all the inhabitants
of Italy to whom he presented himself as an in-
digent exile and wanderer. In order that he might
regain his lost dignity, he made a display of his
talents and attainments in a form in which they could
be appreciated by the multitude, that is, in an Italian
encyclopaedia. The " Convivio," despite its import-
ance, is not much studied, but most readers will be
acquainted with the pathetic and eloquent terms in
which he laments his banishment from Florence and
all its train of ills. 1
That concern for his reputation was the dominant
reason which led to the undertaking of the work is
evident in almost every line of Book I, which, as we
have said, is a general introduction to the remainder
of the treatise, and sets forth in a regular and system-
atic manner its aims, limitations, and characteristics.
At the outset he emphasizes the value of knowledge as
1 "Conv." i, 3; cf. " Par." xvii, 46-61.
THE "CONVIVIO" 237
the acme of human perfection, and it was this pre-
cious possession which distinguished him, even more
than his poetic gift, from the buffoons, actors, and
other parasites that thronged to the court of Can
Grande and other nobles, whose hospitality he was
reduced to accept as an alternative to starvation.
This hospitality he requited by admitting them as
guests to his banquet of philosophy, thus establishing
a kind of equality between him and them. 1
4. APOLOGIES
Dante realizes that the execution of his task is beset
by certain difficulties, which are, in some respects, in-
surmountable. A philosophic work should not be
tainted with egotism, but, as he is anxious to stand
well in the eyes of the world, there is an obvious
temptation to speak of himself. He, however, accepts
the principle of reserve with two exceptions. One of
these is where silence would be a source of danger
and disgrace. In the case of his exile, for instance,
judgement might go by default. The other exception
is where a writer may confer an important benefit on
his readers by personal allusions. Dante cites the
" Confessions " of St. Augustine as an instance, but he
had doubtless in his mind the " Vita Nuova " and
those portions of the " Convivio " in which he ex-
poses the literal sense of his poems. It is worthy of
note that Dante is extremely chary of mentioning his
own name. In the " De Vulgari Eloquentia " he
1 Cf. Epistle X, 3.
238 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
refers to himself as Cino's friend, and in the thirtieth
canto of the " Purgatorio," l where Beatrice addresses
him as " Dante," he enters an apology:
At the sound I turned of my own name,
Which of necessity is here recorded.
As regards the commentary, Dante anticipates two
criticisms. The first is its difficulty. Naturally the
object of any commentary is to elucidate the text of
which it treats, but if the commentary itself is obscure,
the trouble, instead of being remedied, is only aggra-
vated. Dante acknowledges the force of the objection,
and replies that if his prose is not quite plain, this is
the effect, not of ignorance, but of reflection. He
desires to raise his credit, and he hopes to achieve
this result by producing a somewhat weighty work,
written in a dignified style, and possesssing claims to
authority.
Secondly, he has to meet the censure of learned
men for preferring Italian to Latin, and thus violating
long-established tradition. The main grounds on
which Dante defends this procedure are eminently
reasonable. They are three in number, (i.) The
canzoni, to which the commentary is attached, are
Italian compositions, and therefore it would be most
incongruous and irregular to employ Latin for their
interpretation, for, Latin being esteemed the superior
language, the commentary would appear of more im-
portance than the text, (ii.) The use of Latin would
restrict the benefit to comparatively few. True, many
1 H. 55, 62-3.
THE "CONVIVIO" 239
foreigners are acquainted with Latin, but they are
ignorant of Italian, and could not appreciate the
beauty of the odes, whereas many Italians of rank and
talent, by their lack of learning, would be debarred
from the advantages to be obtained from the com-
mentary, (iii.) One has a proper and natural love of
one's own language.
Dante develops these arguments at considerable
length and in a manner that would then have been
deemed " subtle." His points are often fanciful, and
even puerile, and his method is scholastic, though not
to the same degree as in the " De Monarchia." In the
" De Vulgari Eloquentia " ' Dante discovers in Latin
an element of permanence that is wanting in Italian.
His observations in that treatise regarding the rapid
changes in the vocabulary of the Italian dialects anti-
cipate the fifth chapter of the present book, in which
he ascribes the phenomenon to artificial caprice. In
reality, it was due in part to the absence of literary
standards which it is one of his most conspicuous
services in common with those who shared his
artistic instincts in relation to the illustre vulgare to
have introduced. He did not, and could not, know
that the mutation which he noted as going on in the
Italian vernaculars was the working out of a law to
which all human speech, like other organisms, is
eternally subject. A brief citation from Peile's excel-
lent little " Primer of Philology" 2 will illustrate to us
how, in this respect, " the great world spins for ever
down the ringing grooves of change."
1 i, 9; so also "Conv." i, 5. ~ P. 74.
2 4 o HANDBOOK TO DANTE
" ' Derive ' came down to us, and we know its
history; it meant to draw down a stream (rivus in
Latin), and was first of all used only in a literal sense,
then metaphorically; and we can trace rivus back to
a root sru, l to run,' and that may have come from a
simpler root sar, and there we stop. We know nothing
of the previous history of sar, neither did our fore-
fathers.
"Here then is the difference between the two; we
know all about derive, probably no one ever did know
anything about sar. But there is no reason to suppose
that sar is essentially different from derive, that it had
no older form, or that many other forms had not been
formed from it, and died before the Indo-European
period. Neither must we suppose that many other
combinations of sounds, as well as sar, did not exist,
and then died out, when, for some reason or other,
sar, with all its derivatives, took people's fancy more.
Depend upon it, there was a history of language in
those days, which will never be written any more than
the other history of prehistoric man. There is no new
thing under the sun; the thing which is, that thing has
also been. Speech grew and decayed then as now."
5. ON TRANSLATING POETRY
At the close of Chapter VII, Dante makes some
very just remarks on the impossibility of translating
poetry bodily from one language into another. He
recognizes, of course, that the sense can be conveyed,
but the music and the charm have to be sacrificed. I
THE "CONVIVIO" 241
is for this reason, he says, that no attempt was made
to translate Homer into Latin, and that the Psalter
dispenses with metre, this feature having disappeared
when it was rendered from Hebrew into Greek. It
must not be inferred that Dante had any knowledge
of either of those languages. He occasionally refers
to Homer as if he was familiar with his writings ; e.g.,
in i of the "Vita Nuova," but all his citations are
culled from Latin authors or Latin translations of
Aristotle. To Dante, Homer was merely a great tradi-
tion, and the legends of which the " Iliad " and the
" Odyssey " are the splendid and immortal shrines
passed into his possession incidentally through reading
Virgil and other Latin classics, or by the meaner
channel of Dictys and Dares. As for Hebrew, that
was still more inaccessible to the eager student in the
Dark Ages, from which Italy had not yet emerged.
This passage is of peculiar interest on account of
innumerable experiments in translating the "Corn-
media." It is admitted that something must go, and,
if Dante could be consulted, we may be certain from
his statement in the twelfth chapter of Book II, that
while the beauty of a poem is delightful, its goodness
(i.e. its substance or meaning) is still more so, which
element he would most desire to see preserved. His
observations here, however, prove, what we already
know, that Dante attached extreme importance to the
artistic features of poetry diction, rhyme, rhythm, etc.
Stripped of these ornaments, it hardly seemed to him
poetry at all. His translators, many of them, have been
possessed by the same sentiment, and, fascinated by
242 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the incomparable charm of the terza rima, have sought
to present the poem to the English reader in that most
difficult metre. Every such attempt spells qualified or
unqualified failure, since the exigences of rhyming
necessitate continual and at times offensive tampering
with the sense of the original, which is weakened now
by the omission of a word that can be ill spared, now
by the importation of a meretricious epithet that spoils
the dignity of a phrase. If these defects are avoided,
as is wellnigh impossible, it is at the cost of the
rhythm, the harshness of which cruelly belies the
graceful cadence of the Italian verse.
A former famous Master of Balliol Jowett once
remarked to the present writer that "the soul of
translation is compromise." He was thinking prob-
ably of his own versions of Plato, but the dictum is as
true of verse as of prose. Longfellow bowed to the
necessity by rejecting rhyme. In this way he succeeded
in presenting a metrical rendering of extraordinary
fidelity, which reproduces at once the sense and the
form, as far as that can be achieved without the accom-
paniment of rhyme, more satisfactorily than any of its
rivals. It may be questioned, however, whether his
determination to surrender nothing but the rhyme and
conserve all the other features of the " Commedia,"
even to the collocation of the words, has not resulted
in a version intrinsically harder than the original,
for the latter rests on a different grammatical basis,
and is rendered more easily intelligible by a richer
variety of inflections.
THE "CONVIVIO" 243
6. PATRIOTISM
In this treatise Dante concedes what he denies in
the " De Vulgari Eloquentia," ' that Latin is superior
to Italian; 2 but he warmly opposes the contention, to
which many of his own countrymen subscribe, that
Italian is not so fine a language as Provenal. 3 He
expects to disprove this odious verdict in his comments
on his own poems. Meanwhile he explores the causes
of a judgment so contrary to fact. In this inquiry, as
also in his chapters on the making and marring of
reputations, Dante displays much insight into the
nooks and crannies of imperfect human nature, whilst
the conclusion of the book reveals the nobler traits of
his own character in addition to his intellectual keen-
ness and discernment. He, for one, has firm faith in
the capabilities of his native tongue ; and he accepts it
as a filial duty to enhance its distinction.
7. THE POEMS
It is somewhat curious that the sequence of the
canzoni placed at the head of the second, third, and
fourth books is not chronological. Canzone I is closely
related to xxxvm and xxxix of the " Vita Nuova,"
and describes the mental conflict that attended the
transition from Dante's first love to his second.
Canzone II was written when the triumph of the
second love was complete a phase of which there is
no indication in the "Vita Nuova," whilst Canzone III
1 i, i. a "Conv." i, 5. 3 "Conv." i, u.
244 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
(which treats, not of love, but of one of the conditions
of love, nobility of character) must have been com-
posed in the interval, since Dante plainly alludes to a
breach in the tornata of Canzone II, where the words
fera e disdegnosa correspond with disdegnosi e feri in
Canzone III. The Lady of Pity has developed, or
Dante thinks she has developed, ungracious traits,
which divert him temporarily from his accustomed
theme of love.
8. QUADRUPLE MEANING
Dante applies to his odes the same fourfold system
of interpretation which, as we have learned from
Epistle X, governs the understanding of the "Corn-
media." To the moral and mystic senses, however,
he devotes but slight attention, occupying himself
almost entirely with the literal and allegorical mean-
ings. Thus chapters ii-xii of Book II are concerned
with the exposition of Canzone I as a love-poem ; and
chapters xiii-xvi unfold its symbolical intention. In
Book III the literal aspects of Canzone II take up
the first ten chapters, and its allegorical sense the
remainder. As Canzone III is a philosophical poem,
the contents of Book IV are more uniform than of
those which precede. There being no allegory, it is
necessary to take account of the literal meaning, and
that alone.
The literal interpretation of the poems reminds us
of the procedure adopted in the " Vita Nuova "; since
it explains the divisions of the odes, elucidates difficult
THE "CONVIVIO" 245
phrases, and comprises remarks on poetical and rhe-
torical technique, combined with longer or shorter
digressions on philosophic questions, to which par-
ticular allusions give rise. The allegorical sections
profess to reveal the " hidden truth " of the poetry,
and show in detail the relevancy of the expressions to
the pursuit of learning. Thus, if the lady is "proud
and disdainful " (cf. Milton's terms " harsh and
crabbed," "dull fools'" opinion of "divine philo-
sophy"), the real meaning is that Dante was unable
to comprehend the proofs, to follow the train of
argument.
9. PHILOSOPHIC AUTHORITIES
As regards the relations between the " Vita Nuova "
and the "Convivio" enough has been said in the
previous chapters. Accordingly, we shall confine our-
selves to the philosophical topics discussed in the
treatise. The "Vita Nuova," the "De Vulgari Elo-
quentia," the "De Monarchia," and the " De Aqua et
Terra," all contain similar ingredients in the shape of
passing references, but, in order to avoid tiresome
repetition, we omitted to deal with those incidental
allusions in anticipation of our present task. Study of
the " Convivio " will not only throw light on certain
dark places in the writings named, but will advance us
a considerable way towards the comprehension of the
" Commedia."
First, we must briefly review Dante's sources. In
most of his minor works he constantly appeals to one
246 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
supreme authority, whom he calls the Philosopher.
This supreme authority is Aristotle. In the ninth
chapter of the first book of the " Convivio " he men-
tions him by name, and styles him his master. Now
Dante did not know Greek, and therefore he could
not read Aristotle in the original. He had to depend
on translations, of which, as we learn from " Con-
vivio," II, 15, there were two "the old," and "the
new." By "the old," he appears to have meant the
translation made by Michael Scot from the Arabic
into Latin, and by " the new," that of Thomas Aquinas
from the Greek into Latin. There is no reason to
doubt that Dante was personally acquainted with
these versions, but in various instances in which he
cites Aristotle, his information has actually been de-
rived from classical or mediaeval authors.
Another Greek philosopher whom he invokes
seven times in the "Convivio" and once in the " De
Monarchia" is Pythagoras. Here there is no ques-
tion of his consulting the wise man's writings, even in
the form of translations, since Pythagoras did not
leave any. Dante therefore was indebted for what he
knew of this philosopher's opinions to the same
sources from which he drew his notions of Aristotle.
The passages l in which he discusses the origin of the
term "philosopher," are based either on Cicero's
"Tusculanae Quaestiones" (v, 3), or on St. Augus-
tine's " De Civitate Dei" (vii, 2; xviii, 25). Dante
cites the latter work in the " De Monarchia " (iii, 4).
Both in the "Convivio" (iv, 8, 15, 24, 25, 27), and
1 " Conv." ii, 16; iii, II.
THE "CONVIVIO" 247
the " De Monarchia" (ii, 5, 8, 10), he culls from
Cicero's " De Officiis"; and, owing to a lapse of
memory, he attributes to Aristotle the sentiment,
apparently derived from that treatise (ii, n), "that
justice is beloved even by her foes." l
In "Convivio," iv, 13, Dante speaks vaguely of
"the Commentator," which description he employs
also in the " De Aqua et Terra" ( 5, 18). This, in
the Middle Ages, was a common appellation of the
Arabian philosopher Averroes, and the allusion, as is
evident from the context, is to the commentary on
Aristotle. Compare " Inferno," iv, 144:
Averroes, who the great Comment made.
This line follows immediately on the mention of
Avicenna, who is cited in the " De Convivio " (ii, 14,
15; iii, 14; iv, 21), and another Arabian philosopher
whose name occurs in the treatise is Algazel, Averroes'
master.
Dante had studied Albertus Magnus "Albert of
Cologne" ("Paradiso," x, 98) whom he mentions in
"Convivio," iii, 7; iv, 23, but the acknowledgements
he there makes express not a tithe of his obligations
to that doctor, to whom he owed much of his Aris-
totelian and other philosophy. Albertus, who was
born in 1193 and died in 1280, misled Dante with
regard to the opinion that the kindling of vapours
about the planet Mars portends the deaths of kings
and the transformation of kingdoms.* Albertus and
Dante after him attribute this belief to Albumazar, an
2 "Conv." ii, 14.
248 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Arabian philosopher born at Balkh, in Turkestan, in
805, but, as far as can be ascertained from his writings,
Albumazar never said anything of the kind.
In the second book of the " Convivio " (chapter vi),
reference is made to a Libra del? aggregazione delle
stelle, and later in the treatise ' we meet with the name
of its author, Alfraganus, who was born at Fergana in
Sogdiana, and flourished in the early part of the ninth
century. His works were translated into Latin about
1242, under the title of "Alfragani Elementa Astro-
nomica" it is believed, by Johannes Hispalensis and
were used in the " Vita Nuova " as well as here.
In the course of the treatise Dante cites Plato. We
have seen that his knowledge of Homer was derived
from sporadic allusions in the Latin classics; his
acquaintance with Platonic philosophy was due in
like manner to references occurring in the writings of
Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, Cicero, St. Augustine,
and St. Thomas Aquinas. But whereas, as he tells
us, there was no translation of Homer, there existed a
Latin version of Plato's "Timaeus," to which Dante
might have had access. It was known to his master,
Albertus Magnus. One of Dante's text-books was the
" Summa Theologica " of St. Thomas Aquinas, whom
he mentions several times in the " Convivio," while
in Epistle X he names the " De Consideratione " of
St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the " De Contempla-
tione " of Richard of St Victor as works profitable to
study.
1 Ch. 14.
THE "CONVIVIO" 249
10. DEGREE OF ORIGINALITY
The "Convivio," then, is in no real sense original;
such evidence of independence as it contains is prob-
ably accidental, and due to forgetfulness of the teach-
ings of authorities. Thus in "Convivio," ii, 16, he
states that the fallen angels, whose place was to have
been filled by the creation of man, belonged to all
the orders of the celestial hierarchy. This is directly
opposed to the affirmations of St. Thomas, who lays
it down that the Seraphim, the Thrones, and the
Dominations remained faithful, and that the rebel
host was recruited from the Cherubim, the Powers,
and the Principalities.
In small matters, in respect of " mint and cummin,"
Dante thinks for himself. In one instance this exhibi-
tion of free-will is attributable, in an equal degree, to
ignorance and learning, or, on the unlikely hypothesis
that he was fully cognisant of the facts, to the hopeless
disagreement of those whose judgment he would other-
wise have accepted. It is recorded in the Gospels of
St. Matthew ' and St. Mark 2 that the angel said to
Mary Magdalene and " the other Mary " at the sepul-
chre, "Behold, he goeth before you into Galilee."
Christian homilists were not content with the bare
literal meaning of these words; they sought to attach
to them a figurative sense. What did " Galilee " signify?
St. Augustine said that it is by interpretation " trans-
migration " or " revelation." St. Jerome, on the other
1 xxviii, 7. 2 xvi, J.
250 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
hand, held it to denote " capacity to turn " or " a
wheel." Most writers appear to have favoured the first
explanation with the addition "accomplished." This
still leaves a considerable amount of obscurity, but
St. Thomas Aquinas makes everything plain by his
definitions. "Galilee," he says, "according to the
interpretation 'transmigration,' signifies heathendom
(genii Ufa fern}; but according to the interpretation
'revelation,' it signifies the heavenly fatherland."
Whether Dante was aware of this traditional diverg-
ence or the various ways in which the name " Galilee "
had been explained, does not appear probably not,
for with his eagerness for subtle disquisitions he would
have endeavoured to make something of the discovery.
Meanwhile a new interpretation had been broached
that connected the name with the Greek word ya'Xa
("milk"), and Isidore of Seville affirmed that Galilee
was so called because it produced fairer people than
Palestine. The same account is given in Uguccione's
" Magnae Deri vationes," and in the same words, except
that "Palestine" is emended to "any other part of
Palestine." Now Dante, as will be seen from " Con-
vivio," iv, 6, was familiar with Uguccione's work, and
he confidently informs us that " Galilee " is equi-
valent to " whiteness." " Whiteness " is a symbolical
expression for speculation or science, and thus the
meaning of the angel's words, as reported by St. Mark
Dante quotes St. Mark, not St. Matthew is that
Blessedness will go before the disciples in the search
for truth. 1
1 " Conv. " iv, 22.
THE "CONVIVIO" 251
ii. PHILOLOGY
Dante names Uguccione only once, but in various
passages where he expounds the meaning of Greek
terms, he is really paraphrasing that writer's Latin
("Convivio," ii, 4; iii, 9, n; iv, 6; "Epist." x, 10).
His derivations of Italian and Latin words ("Con-
vivio," ii, 8; iii, 13; iv, 24) and Hebrew names
("DeVulgari Eloquentia," i, 6, 7), are borrowed from
Uguccione. Dante's general vocabulary includes a
number of words of Greek origin, which might lead us
to suspect that, after all, he had some knowledge of
that language, but, in every instance, the "little
learning " can be traced to Uguccione's etymological
dictionary, to Cicero, or to translations of Aristotle.
Uguccione was a native of Pisa, born about the middle
of the twelfth century. He was for some time professor
of ecclesiastical jurisprudence at Bologna, and after-
wards Bishop of Ferrara. He died in 1210.
12. ASTRONOMY
Philology forms but a small element of the " Con-
vivio." The greater part of the second book is devoted
to astronomy, this procedure being dictated by the
necessity of explaining the opening line of Canzone I,
which is addressed to " ye who, intelligent, the third
heaven move." Dante first discusses the number of
the heavens, and here he takes the unusual course of
differing from Aristotle, whose authority in philo-
252 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
sophical matters he, in the sixth chapter of Book IV,
pronounces final. Aristotle held that there were eight
heavens, ending with that of the Fixed Stars, and he
had wrong conceptions of their relative positions, but
that prince of philosophers made no secret of the fact
that he was guided by the opinions of others with
regard to astronomy.
Dante, if he was to remain orthodox, not only in
science, but in religion, was bound to accept the
Ptolemaic system, which had become part of Chris-
tianity. In xxx of the " Vita Nuova," he states that
"according to Ptolemy and the Christian truth, the
heavens that move are nine." In the "Convivio"
(ii, 4), he says that the Catholics place the Empyrean
heaven, which they regard as motionless, outside the
nine mobile heavens, and he adds that "this is the
place of the blessed spirits according to the Holy
Church, which cannot lie."
Dante conceived of the earth as the centre of the
universe. In the fifth chapter of the third book he
makes mention of various philosophical theories with
regard to it. The first is that of Pythagoras and his
followers, that the world is one of the stars, that over
against it is another star called Antichthon, that both are
included in the same sphere which revolves from east
to west, and that this revolution is the reason why the
sun is sometimes visible and sometimes not. Next he
cites Plato's opinion that earth and sea are the centre
of all things, and that the world revolves on its axis
conformably with the original motion of the heaven,
but very slowly, owing to its mass and its distance
THE "CONVIVIO" 253
from the heaven. Finally, he records Aristotle's judg-
ment that the earth stands still, and is in a condition
of perpetual fixedness. He does not trouble to re-
capitulate Aristotle's arguments, affirming that his
" great authority " suffices.
The nine mobile heavens revolve round the earth
in the following order. The first, or nearest, is that of
the moon, the second that of Mercury, the third that
of Venus, the fourth that of the Sun, the fifth that of
Mars, the sixth that of Jupiter, the seventh that of
Saturn, the eighth that of the Fixed Stars, and the
ninth the Crystalline Heaven, otherwise known as the
Primum Mobile. He accounts for the motion of these
heavens on the mystic principle that the ninth heaven,
whence it is communicated to all the rest, is actuated
in all its parts by a fervent desire for union with the
stationary Empyrean, which is the most divine and
the abode of Deity. The heavens revolve with a
velocity proportioned to their proximity to the Empy-
rean, the most rapid being the Crystalline, and the
slowest that of the Moon. The third heaven is distin-
guished by the presence of a little sphere situated " on
the back of" its equator. In this epicycle, which has
its own revolution, is the planet Venus.
13. ANGELOLOGY
The motions of the heavens, which are diaphanous,
but material, 1 are directed by certain Intelligences
1 "Conv." ii, 7; "Par." xxviii, 64.
254 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
commonly called Angels, which are immaterial, and
their touch or impact is not corporeal but intellectual.
Here again Dante breaks with Aristotle, who taught
that there were no Intelligences beyond those so em-
ployed, since there were no spheres in which they
could exercise their activity. Dante shows that just as
with men there are two kinds of happiness, one the
civil, the other the contemplative life, and of the two
the latter is the more excellent and divine, so it is
with the angels. Some are engaged in this ministry ;
others are devoted to pure contemplation. Dante
notices in passing the Platonic view that there are
as many Intelligences as there are ideas or arche-
types, and also the error of the heathen, who, in
their ignorance, transformed intelligences into gods
and goddesses, and worshipped their images. Dante
was no doubt thinking of the names of the planets
Mars, Mercury, Venus, etc. which are applied to
the heavens over which the Intelligences severally pre-
side.
There are three hierarchies, and in each hierarchy
there are three orders. The first hierarchy, by which
is meant the lowest and nearest to man, consists of
Angels, Archangels, and Thrones. The second is com-
posed of Dominations, Virtues, and Principalities; and
the third, of Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim. The
motors of the Heaven of the Moon are stated to be
the Angels, those of the Heaven of Mercury the Arch-
angels, and those of the Heaven of Venus the Thrones.
In the eighth canto of the " Paradiso," ' Dante tacitly
1 11. 34-7-
THE "CONVIVIO" 255
corrects this account, as regards the third heaven, and
assigns the service to the Principalities.
We turn around with the celestial Princes,
One gyre and one gyration and one thirst,
To whom thou in the world of old didst say,
Ye who, intelligent, the third heaven are moving.
And similarly in the ninth canto : 2
Above us there are mirrors, Thrones you call them.
In the twenty-eighth canto of the same cantica, the
Angels, Archangels, and Principalities form the first
triad; the Dominations, Virtues, and Powers, the
second; the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, the
third and highest.
14. ALLEGORY
In the later chapters of Book II Dante expounds
the canzone on which it is based, in an allegorical
sense. The lady of which it speaks is Philosophy, and
the ten heavens are likened to ten sciences, which
have a fixed centre round which they revolve namely,
the subject whilst they impart light, and implant per-
fection in those natures that are responsive to their
influence. The order of the sciences, corresponding
with that of the heavens, is as follows: Grammar (or
Latin); Dialectic; Rhetoric; Arithmetic; Music; Geo-
metry; Astronomy; Natural Science (Physics and Meta-
physics) ; Moral Science (or Ethics) ; and Theology.
1 1. 61.
256 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
15. MORE ASTRONOMY
The paragraph on grammar is noteworthy, partly
because it contradicts what is said in the " De Vulgari
Eloquentia " regarding the invariableness of Latin, and
partly because the explanation here given of the spots
in the moon is formally refuted in the second canto of
the "Paradise." In other passages Dante sets forth
astronomical data borrowed from Alfraganus, whose
calculations, however, he is content to give approx-
imately. In Chapter VII he indicates the extraordinary
virtue of the planet Venus by a reference to its dis-
tance, which, he declares, is one hundred and sixty,
seven times as great as the diameter of the earth, which
is three thousand two hundred and fifty miles. This
makes the distance between the earth and Venus
542,750 miles. The actual distance, of course, varies,
Venus being nearer to the earth at one time than
another. In Chapter XIV we are informed in a similarly
circuitous manner that the diameter of Mercury is two
hundred and thirty-two miles. Mercury, it is true, is
the smallest of the planets, being only three times as
large as the moon, but its diameter greatly exceeds
Dante's measurement. It may be observed that this
planet, instead of being nearest to the earth, is nearest
to the sun. In the eighth chapter of Book IV Dante,
contradicting the axiom laid down in the " De Aqua
et Terra " that every opinion opposed to the evidence
of the senses is bad, maintains that opinions formed
on such evidence are apt to be most false. He in-
stances the case of the sun, which seems to be no
THE "CONVIVIO" 257
more than a foot in diameter. In reality, he says, its
diameter is five and a half times that of the earth, or,
in other words, 35,750 miles.
The Heaven of the Fixed Stars travels from west to
east at the rate of one degree in a hundred years;
hence it follows that since the creation of the world,
which is supposed to have taken place five thousand
years or more before Christ, it has accomplished little
more than a sixth of its course. Saturn occupies
twenty-nine years and more in completing the circle
of the zodiac, whilst the revolutions of the other
planets are given as follows: Jupiter, twelve years;
Mars, two years; the Sun, Venus, and Mercury, three
hundred and sixty-five days; and the Moon, twenty-
nine days. The lunar month, according to Alfraganus,
is 29 days 12^ hours an important difference, but
throughout Dante treats considerable fractions as
negligible quantities.
Like the earth, the heaven has two poles, one of
which is the polar star, or in the neighbourhood of the
polar star, and an equator parallel with the terrestrial
equator. In the fifth chapter of Book III, after making
these statements, he goes on to describe the ecliptic
or apparent path of the Sun from west to east. This
he does quite correctly; and in the same chapter he
computes the dimensions of the earth. If, he says, a
stone were to fall from the celestial North Pole, it
would fall in the ocean at a point where, if a man
were standing, the polar star would be immediately
overhead. Dante supposes that there are two cities,
Maria and Lucia, situated at the terrestrial North and
s
258 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
South Pole respectively. From Rome to Maria in a
direct line he calculates would be 2,700 miles, and
from Rome to Lucia 7,500 miles. Thus the entire
circumference of the globe would be 20,400 miles. He
points out that the inhabitants of Maria would have
their feet exactly opposite to those of the inhabitants
of Lucia, thus expressing the idea conveyed by the
word antipodes.
In "Convivio," iii, 6, and iv, 23, attention is drawn
to the difference between equal and unequal (or tem-
poral) hours. Day and night together are composed of
twenty-four hours of equal length, but the canonical
day, which lasts as long as the sunlight, varies accord-
ing to the season. At the summer solstice it is longest,
and it is shortest at the winter solstice. As it is neces-
sary that it should contain twelve hours, these hours
are " great " in the summer and " small " in the winter.
1 6. ASTROLOGY
In the Middle Ages, and for Dante, astronomy and
astrology were two aspects of the same science, and
are described in this treatise by the single term
astrologia. The celestial bodies were believed to have
a great influence over sublunary things, and there was
some foundation for this belief. The life-giving and
life-sustaining power of the sun," and the relation be-
tween moon and tide are undeniable examples of the
action of the heavenly bodies on the earth. But Dante
and his contemporaries attributed effects of varied
character not only to the sun and moon, but to the
THE "CONVIVIO" 259
earth's sister-planets and the fixed stars. Dante does
not state definitely, but he certainly seems to imply
in the second book of the " Convivio," that aptitude
for particular sciences results from the influence of
special planets possessing similar characteristics. Son-
net XXVIII distinctly affirms that this is the case.
In "Convivio," iii, 12, Dante states that the sun
" vivifies all things with its heat," and it is apparently
for this reason that he declares in the " De Mon-
archia " (i, 9) that man and the sun beget man, and
that he calls that luminary in "Paradiso," xxii, 116,
"father of all mortal life." It must not be forgotten,
however, that in the tenth canto of that cantica (11. 28-9)
he speaks of the sun as
The greatest of the ministers of nature,
Who with the power of heaven the world imprints.
Here he obviously refers to the sun as an agent in
producing excellence and diversity, and as one of
several or many agents. If we turn again to the " De
Monarchia " (ii, 2) we shall find that Dante regards
"nature" as a vague, popular term convertible with
"heaven." Heaven is God's instrument in creation,
and in the same passage in which Dante describes man
as partly begotten by the sun, he calls him a son of
heaven, which he depicts as remarkable for the har-
mony of its motions, and invites mankind to emulate.
While, then, the sun may be esteemed the greatest of
Nature's ministers, the other heavenly bodies have a
share in determining human destiny. We have ob-
served evidence of this belief in xxx of the " Vita
260 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Nuova," and Dante, having been born when the sun
was in Gemini, attached the highest importance to th :
constellation, with reference to which he exclaims :
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,
With you was born, and hid himself with you
He who is father of all human life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air.
To you devoutly at this hour my soul
Is sighing that it virtue may acquire
For the stern pass that draws it to itself. '
How was the virtue transmitted? This is explained
in " Convivio," ii, 7, where we are informed that,
although it resides in the whole of a heaven, it can only
be conveyed from the star by means of its beams.
This is not an automatic process, but results from the
action of the Intelligence; and the Intelligence that
guided the eighth heaven (that of the Fixed Stars) is
represented as presiding over the economy of all the
inferior spheres.
Within the heaven of the divine repose
Revolves a body, in whose virtue lies
The being of whatever it contains.
The following heaven, which has so many eyes,
Divides this being by essences diverse,
Distinguished from it, and by it contained.
The other spheres, by various differences,
All the distinctions, which they have within them,
Dispose unto their ends and their effects.
1 " Par." xxii, 112-23.
THE "CONVIV1O" 261
Thus do these organs of the world proceed,
As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade ;
Since from above they take, and act beneath.
The power and motion of the holy spheres,
As from the artisan the hammer's craft,
Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.
The heaven, %vhich lights so manifold make fair,
From the Intelligence profound, which turns it,
The image takes, and makes of it a seal.
And even as the soul within your dust,
Through members different and accommodated
To faculties diverse, expands itself.
So likewise this Intelligence diffuses
Its virtue multiplied among the stars,
Itself revolving on its unity.
Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage
Make with the precious body that it quickens,
In which, as life in you, it is combined.
From the glad nature, whence it is derived,
The mingled virtue through the body shines,
Even as gladness through the living pupil. 1
17. NOBILITY
The term " virtue" is used in this context in the
most general sense of efficacy. In the fourth book
Dante discusses and compares moral virtue and nobi-
lity. A large part of the book is devoted to disproving
the authority of the Emperor Frederick II to define
nobility, and the accuracy of his definition. He
made it to consist of " ancient riches and good man-
ners." This account evidently refers to the conven-
" Par." ii. 112-44.
262 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
tional meaning of the word, and Dante, as we have
seen, accepts it in the " De Monarchia," and makes it
the basis of his argument. The contradiction between
the two treatises is fundamental. In the "Convivio"
Dante inquires how lucre, which is itself filthy, can
possibly confer nobility. In the " De Monarchia " the
justice of the Prince depends on the absence of temp-
tations arising from material wants, and it might be
urged with considerable force that all persons whose
possessions elevate them above the daily struggle for
existence are exempt from many inducements to mean
and criminal actions. Here, however, Dante does
what he carefully abstains from doing in the " De
Monarchia " he appeals to facts. There are palpable
and notorious instances of degeneracy, which may
sometimes affect an entire kindred. " Ancient riches,"
therefore, are no guarantee of nobility, and good man-
ners form but a small fraction of it.
What, then, is nobility? In the widest sense Dante
defines it as " the perfection of its own nature in each
thing." As regards man, it is essentially a quality of
the soul, and may be reproduced in his offspring or
not, according to circumstances. In Chapter XXI
Dante describes the process of generation, in relation
to the soul, in a way that renders it quite clear why
nobility is not always or perhaps often transmitted.
Paternity is merely one factor ; there is the question of
the disposition of the heaven, and the constellations are
continually changing. Moreover, though the formative
virtue of the begetting soul may be good, the " com-
plexion " or constitution of the seed maybe faulty;
THE "CONViVIO" 263
and the Possible Intellect is bestowed by God in a
measure proportionate to the excellence of the soul
produced by the co-operation of f these three "virtues."
The Possible Intellect is the faculty of receiving general
ideas, while the Active Intellect is the faculty that
culls abstract ideas from sensible objects.
The human soul is composed of three elements, or,
as Dante calls them, "potencies" the vegetative,
which it shares with plants; the sensitive, which it
shares with brutes ; and the intellectual, which it shares
with the Deity and the angels (" Convivio," iii, 2; cf.
" De Monarchia," i, 3). These faculties are developed
not simultaneously, but in succession. The various
stages are denoted in an important passage of the
twenty-fifth canto of the" Purgatorio," ' in which Statius
enlightens the younger poet:
The active virtue, being made a soul
As of a plant (in so far different
This on its way is, that arrived already)
Then works so much that now it moves and feels
Like a sea-fungus, and then undertakes
To organize the powers whose seed it is.
Now, son, dilates and now distends itself
The virtue from the generator's heart,
Where nature is intent on all its members.
But how from animal it man becomes
Thou dost not see as yet.
Open thy breast unto the truth that's coming
And know that, just as soon as in the foetus
The articulation of the brain is perfect,
1 11. 36-78.
264 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
The Primal Motor turns to it well-pleased
At so great art of nature, and inspires
A spirit new with virtue all replete
Which what it finds there active doth attract
Into its substance, and becomes one soul,
Which lives, and feels, and on itself revolves.
And that thou less may wonder at my word,
Behold the Sun's heat, which becometh wine
Joined to the juice that from the vine distils.
Dante's mentor goes on to show how the soul in its
entirety, not only the Possible Intellect, survives the
death of the body and clothes itself anew by means of
its inherent virtue. This reminds us of a passage of
extreme interest in the second book of the "Con-
vivio," 1 in which Dante condemns in unmeasured
terms the heretical denial of the immortality of the
soul. The digression is interesting partly on account
of Dante's friendship with Guido Cavalcanti, and
partly on account of the widespread but seemingly
unfounded notion that the poet himself at one period
of his life substituted the light of philosophy for the
lamp of faith, the " Convivio " being a monument of
this falling away. The plain truth is that nothing in the
work is more evident than Dante's consistent anxiety
to confine his speculations within the limits of the
Catholic religion ; and, apart from small discrepancies,
the " Convivio " is in striking harmony with the " Corn-
media," the orthodoxy of which is not only conceded,
but insisted on.
As so much more goes to the making of a man than
the character of his father, it is now easily understood
1 Ch. ix.
THE "CONVIVIO" 265
why nobility is not an appanage of a particular family
or class. Even when it is inherited, it may be lost.
Every soul is endued with appetite, which in itself is
neither good nor bad. Dante calls appetite a "spirit-
ual motion," 1 and it is good or bad according to the
way it is trained and the objects to which it is
attracted(" Purgatorio,"xvi, 82-105; cp. "Purgatorio,"
xxx, 111-120). Appetite is identical with the philoso-
phical conception of love, and in the " Convivio "
(iv, 22, 26), it is represented mainly in a favourable
light as a moral and spiritual lever. It may be just the
reverse, and is so displayed in the seventeenth canto
of the " Purgatorio ";-
' Neither Creator nor a creature ever,
Son," he began, "was destitute of love,
Natural or spiritual, and thou knowest it.
The natural was ever without error ;
But err the other may by evil object,
Or by too much, or by too little vigour.
While in the first it well directed is
And in the second moderates itself,
It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure.
But when to ill it turns, and with more care
Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,
'Gainst the Creator works his own creation.
Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,
And every act that merits punishment.
There are who by abasement of their neighbour
Hope to excel and therefore only long
That from his greatness he may be cast down ;
Purg." xviii, 32. 2 11. 91-138.
266 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown
Fear they may lose because another rises,
Thence are so sad that the reverse they love ;
And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
And such must needs shape out another's harm.
This threefold love is wept for down below, etc.
In the succeeding canto Dante asserts the principle
of free-will as a check upon appetite:
Innate within you is the power that counsels
And it should keep the threshold of assent.
This is the principle from which is taken
Occasion of desert in you, according
As good and guilty loves it takes and winnows.
Those who, in reasoning, to the bottom went,
Were of this innate liberty aware,
Therefore bequeathed they ethics to the world.
Supposing, then, that from necessity,
Springs every love that is within you kindled,
Within yourselves the power is to restrain it.
The noble virtue Beatrice understands
By the free will. 1
All this is in complete accord with Dante's com-
parison of appetite to a spirited horse ridden by
Reason, 2 and his definition of moral virtue as re-
sulting from a " good and habitual choice " 3 and as
a mean between two extremes. 4 Nobility and moral
virtue are not co-extensive,' since the former includes
intellectual and moral virtues ; good dispositions, such
as piety and religion; praiseworthy feelings, like
1 "Purg." xviii, 62-74. 2 "Conv."iv, 26.
3 "Conv."iv, 18. 4 "Conv."iv, 17.
1 " Conv." iv, 18.
THE "CONVIVIO" 267
modesty and pity; and even physical excellences
beauty, and strength, and health. Of the intellectual
virtues Dante says nothing in Book IV, but he refers
to them in the second chapter of Book III, where
he speaks of scientific, reasoning or counselling, in-
ventive, and judicial faculties. In " Convivio," iv, 21,
he mentions seven spiritual virtues, or gifts of the
Holy Ghost, in regard to which he follows Isaiah,
xi, 2. The moral virtues, eleven in number, are dis-
tinguished in accordance with the " Ethics " of Aris-
totle; but Dante's comments are confined to the
qualities mentioned in the canzone as befitting the
different periods of human life. These are, mainly,
obedience, modesty, sweetness, and regard for per-
sonal appearance in youth (1-25); self-restraint, cour-
age, affection, courtesy, and loyalty in maturity (25-45) ;
prudence, justice, liberality, and affability in one's
declining years (45-60); and piety and gratitude in
extreme old age (60-70).
It may be noted that in the twentieth chapter of
Book IV Guinicelli's ode, " Al cor gentil ripara sempre
Amore," is mentioned, and the whole of the book may
be regarded as an elaborate defence of a cardinal
doctrine of the philosophic school of poetry to which
Dante adhered that nobility is moral and intel-
lectual, not a synonym for high birth and social
distinction, though, in Chapter XX, we find it hinted
that the poor man is at some disadvantage in attain-
ing it.
The " Convivio " cannot be termed a systematic
treatise, and yet it has a certain method and com-
268 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
pleteness, since it begins with a study of the heavenly
bodies, traces their influence on human beings, and
concludes with a view of man in society reflecting
their harmony. In the fourteenth book he intended
to treat of justice, and in the fifteenth, and last, of
generosity, probably in connection with Canzoni XX
and X. 1
1 "Conv." i, 12; 8.
PART II
SPIRITUAL
CHAPTER I
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM
THE whole of the preceding chapters are, in a
true sense, a preparation for the study of the
"Commedia," since the romantic, political, and philo-
sophical ideas they unfold lie at the root of that great
poem, while it would be obviously impossible to com-
prehend its significance with regard to Dante's per-
sonal history as recounted at the outset. Already,
therefore, we are in possession of many of the facts
and principles essential to an intelligent perusal of
the "Commedia"; but there still remain various
topics in relation to the work which can by no means
be overlooked.
i. DATE
First as to the date. We must distinguish between
the date of the vision, real or imaginary, on which
the poem is founded, and that of the poem itself.
The early commentators failed to observe this dis-
tinction, and -believed that the. "Commedia" was
written in 1300. As a number of passages display
knowledge of events considerably later, this was to
attribute to Dante, over and above his other talents, a
271
272 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
gift of actual prophecy, to which he certainly pretends,
and which at least one critic T seems willing to allow.
Common sense and ordinary experience do not permit
us to build on this very shaky hypothesis, and when
we find Dante alluding to incidents that befell ten
or fifteen years after the nominal date of the poem,
we take the liberty to conclude that the passages in
which these allusions occur were indited with the pen
not of a prophet but an historian.
Could we be sure that each canto was completed
in its present form in its present order, such re-
ferences would be of inestimable value in marking
the progress of the composition; but it is not likely
that the " Commedia," as the masterpiece upon which
Dante hung all his expectations of undying fame,
would be finished, as it were, piecemeal. Foscolo
unquestionably erred in conjecturing that Dante jeal-
ously preserved, as a profound secret, the nature of
the work on which he was engaged, so that its con-
tents became known only after his death; but there is
little doubt that, as Witte says, the poem was revised
and interpolated again and again before it was pub-
lished. Thus when Dante, in the nineteenth canto of
the ' ' Inferno," 2 betrays an acquaintance with the time
of Pope Clement's death, which took place on 2oth
April, 1314, the only safe conclusion that can be
drawn from the circumstance is that the poem, as a
whole, was not completed before that date.
As regards the "Paradise," it was not completed,
nor even perhaps begun, before 1318, since in his first
1 Repetti. * I 79.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 273
epistle Giovanni di Virgilio refers to the expedition of
King Robert of Naples to Genoa, which occurred in
the summer of that year, and Dante observes in his
reply that it will be time enough to bind his head with
ivy and laurel "when the revolving bodies of the
universe and the dwellers in the stars shall, like the
lower kingdoms, be revealed in my song."
The parturition, then, was slow and gradual, and
though there is reason to surmise that the poem as-
sumed its final shape between the death of Henry VII
in 1313 and Dante's own death in 1321, it is not im-
possible that he had been experimenting with the
subject from the year 1300 or thereabouts.
2. FICTITIOUS DATE
If, as a fact, he then made the first sketch of the
" Commedia," it is abundantly clear why he referred
its action to that year. If he began it thus early, he
may also have continued it, and therefore, after all,
Frate Ilario's letter may be genuine and truthful.
Scartazzini's main argument against this notion is that
the " Commedia " cannot have been in any sense con-
temporary with the " Convivio," because that would be
fatal to Witte's theory of a psychological "trilogy."
But the theory is, as we have seen, most questionable
it cannot be received as an article of faith that
Dante passed through a period of philosophic doubt
between a child-like acceptance of Christianity mir-
rored in the " Vita Nuova," and the triumphant assur-
ance proclaimed in the " Commedia."
T
274 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
If the "Commedia" was not begun in 1300, what
motive, or motives, can have led Dante to settle upon
this date as the time of the action? It is possible that
he had some dream or vision more or less analogous
to the broad outlines of the poem, or that he con-
ceived the general plan and thought out some of the
details. It is possible, and even probable, that he
underwent the spiritual experience known as con-
version, and formed the resolution of dedicating his
genius thenceforth to the service of religion. It has
been frequently pointed out that 1300 was not only
the centennial year, but the year of the great Jubilee,
and singly or jointly these circumstances might well
have inspired some vast and profound poetical pro-
ject. Then, again, this year was the crown or turn-
ing-point of Dante's life. Born in 1265, he would then
have been thirty-five an age that coincided with half
of man's allotted span. As Dante himself makes no
allusion to the Jubilee, it is extremely doubtful
whether that event took any great hold on his imagina-
tion. The commencement of the poem, however, is
plainly significant.
Midway upon the journey of our life.
At the age of thirty-five, when at least half of life
was gone, Dante may, quite naturally, have reflected
on his destiny and that of the whole human race. But
the fitness of such conduct is no proof that it was
historical. In 1300 Dante was in the throes of political
controversy, and one would suppose that his thoughts
were absorbed by the difficult problems arising out of
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 275
the creation of a new and bitter feud. The overture
of the " Commedia " may be no more than a recog.
nition that repentance and reform are becoming to a
man who has arrived at middle age. The date of the
vision may be as fictitious as that of the poem. In
this connection it is worthy of remark that Guittone of
Arezzo, for whom Dante expresses such unbounded
contempt, but with whose writings he was evidently
familiar, was his precursor in this respect. Gaspary, in
his notice of that poet, says :
"Guittone's literary activity is divided into two
sharply distinguished periods. To the first belonged
the love-poetry. Without love, he then thought, there
is no excellence, no poetry; and so he endeavours to
fall in love, entreating Amore to enter his breast, and
begging the poet Bandino to teach him what he must
do in order to fall in love (Sonnet LII). But there
came a turning-point in his life, ' in the middle of the
way,' as with Dante:
From my beginning until middle age
I was in a place shameful, foul, and hideous,
To which I turned me quite . . .
he says, in the poem on his conversion to the Virgin
Mary (Canzone III). He was, therefore, probably
only thirty-five years old at the time when he entered
the order of the Cavalieri di Sta. Maria."
Still more important is the passage in the fourth
book of the "Convivio" (c. 28), in which Dante
276 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
points out that Christ died in his thirty-fifth year, il
colmo della sua eta.
We cannot, then, take it for granted that there was
an actual crisis in Dante's spiritual history at the time
stated, and the fact that he afterwards succumbed to
vain and amorous thoughts makes against the belief
that there was any complete renunciation of the world,
any radical and final change in his nature. He con-
tinued to waver between the delusive and transitory
charms of earth and the beckonings of the blessed
Beatrice. For the purpose of the poem, however, his
conversion at the age of thirty-five must be assumed,
and he represents it as effected by a miraculous vision,
or rather, by a real pilgrimage through the regions of
the other world procured for him, as a precious boon,
by the tearful solicitation of her who had become, in
very deed, his guardian angel.
Some time did I sustain him with my look;
Revealing unto him my youthful eyes,
I led him with me turned in the right way.
As soon as ever of my second age
I was upon the threshold and changed life,
Himself he took from me and gave to others.
When from the flesh to spirit I ascended,
And beauty and virtue were in me increased,
I was to him less dear and less delightful ;
And into ways untrue he turned his steps,
Pursuing the false images of good
That never any promises fulfil ;
Nor prayer for inspiration me availed,
By means of which in dreams and otherwise
I called him back, so little did he heed them.
So low he fell, that all appliances
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 277
For his salvation were already short,
Save showing him the people of perdition.
For this I visited the gates of death,
And unto him, who so far up has led him,
My intercessions were with weeping borne. 1
3. SIGNIFICANCE
This explains the vision, but it does not fully ex-
plain the poem, the motives of which are wider. We
have seen that in the " Convivio " (i, 2) Dante affirms
the principle that a writer should eschew allusions to
himself. There is no reason to suppose that he in-
tended to confine this remark to that particular
treatise as a philosophical work, since he calls the
" Commedia " an opus doctrinale? but he qualifies it
by saying that a man may speak of himself in cases
where " there ensues from it very great advantage to
others by way of doctrine." Throughout the poem
Dante writes in the first person, but the procedure is
justified by the circumstance that he conceives of
himself as a representative human being. In his letter
to Can Grande he declares that, literally, the subject
of the poem is the state of souls after death, but in an
allegorical sense, " the subject is man, in so far as by
merit or demerit he is liable to just punishment or re-
ward." As the contents of Epistle X, which is con-
cerned with different aspects of the composition,
formal and philosophical, have been set forth in a
previous section, there is no need to recapitulate the
1 " Purg." xxx, 121-41. 2 Epistle x, 6.
278 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
points one by one, but it may be as well to say that
even those critics who are doubtful about its authen-
ticity attach the utmost importance to the document
as a key to the mind of the poet, and therefore the
reader will find it expedient to refer to those pages in
which the letter is analyzed.
The " Commedia " is a superb literary performance,
but Dante would have esteemed it blasphemy if he
had treated it merely as an occasion for the display of
his poetical genius and philosophical acquirements.
In the epistle to Can Grande he distinctly states that
the work is a " moral affair "; and by avowing that
" the subject is man in so far as by merit or demerit
he is liable to just punishment or reward," he intends
that the "Commedia" is a revelation, not simply of
the Hell, Purgatory, or Paradise that awaits the soul
on its departure from the body, but of certain ana-
logous conditions of the soul in its probationary state,
which render its ultimate destiny inevitable and
according to right. There is a moral Hell, a moral
Purgatory, and a moral Paradise, which some of the
early commentators distinguish from the essential.
Holding the mirror up to his fellow-creatures in the
shape of examples, Dante laboured for their re-
clamation.
4. GENUS
Dante names his poem a commedia (" Inferno," xvi,
128; xxi, 2), the accent falling on the penultimate
syllable. In the " Paradise " he calls it, with reference
probably to the matter of which he there treats, " the
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 279
consecrated" or "the sacred poem" ("Paradise,"
xxiii, 62; xxv, i) a phrase that confirms our observa-
tion that he thought of the work as something that
rose far above the level of mere art, and was akin to
the prophetic writings of the Old Testament and the
Apocalypse of the New. We have marked the senses
in which he understood the term "comedy"; and we
rray here add that in "Inferno," xx, 113, Virgil is
made to speak of " my high tragedy." It might thus
be inferred that Dante did not regard his " Corn-
media" as pertaining to the same class as the
" Aeneid."
It is doubtful whether this conclusion would be
warranted. In the opening canto he praises his own
"beautiful style," which, he says, does him honour,
and he tells us that he took it from Virgil. Three of
the five bards Homer, Virgil, and Lucan with whom
he claims fellowship in the fourth canto, were epic
writers. Ovid's " Metamorphoses " is epic in metre?
and, in so far as it is a narrative poem, in form. 1
Horace, Dante frankly recognizes as a satirist. He is,
therefore, an exception, but an exception that does
not much signify. The " Commedia " includes many
passages of pungent satire, but essentially, it is an
epic. The invocations of Apollo and the Muses, to-
gether with the many incidental similes and meta-
phors, the sustained loftiness of the tone, the greatness
of the theme, and the very bulk of the poem, afford
clear indication of the category in which Dante would
1 The " Ovidio Maggiore " and Lucan are mentioned together
in "Conv." iii, 3.
280 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
have placed it, modestly as he chose to designate it a
comedy.
Nor must we be misled by what is said in the
epistle to Can Grande concerning the style. Dante
rather confuses style and diction. The two cannot be
considered entirely distinct, but whatever freedom Dante
may allow himself in the occasional and discriminat-
ing use of certain terms, the beautiful style, of which
he speaks, 1 was by no means sacrificed in the "Corn-
media." On the contrary, it is there seen in its perfec-
tion, and Dante, as a conscious artist, must have been
aware of it. It is not improbable, indeed, that the
proem, like other prefaces, was indited when the work
was either finished or well advanced towards comple-
tion, in which case the bello stile was, primarily, that of
the " Commedia " itself, not that of the canzoni,
which, as tragic compositions, were technically of a
higher order.
The "Commedia" is epic, with a difference. A
pure epic is a poem of action, not a didactic work,
and Dante's masterpiece is confessedly didactic. The
" Paradiso " is more it is scholastic. This, however,
does not do away with the fact that the poem moves
through a gradation of vivid scenes to a final and
glorious climax, and that the illuminating dialogues,
though they impede the progress of the work and may
be censured as too frequent and diffuse, are as neces-
sary to its evolution as the speeches interspersed in
the " Iliad " or the " Aeneid."
1 "Inf."i,87.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 281
5. STRUCTURE
The metre of the " Commedia " has been discussed
in connection with the prosodical portion of the " De
Vulgari Eloquentia." As regards the structure of the
poem, it is remarkable for its symmetry. It consists
of three cantiche Dante's own word (" Purgatorio,"
xxxiii, 140) ' and these contain altogether one hun-
dred cantos. Canto is Dante's description ("Inferno,"
xx, 2; "Paradise," v, 16, 139), but the earliest com-
mentators preferred the term capitolo^ which Dante
applies to the chapters of his prose works (e.g., " Con-
vivio," ii, 7). This circumstance may show that it
was the philosophical or historical content, rather
than the poetical form, that chiefly interested them.
The " Inferno " comprises thirty-four cantos, and
each of the other cantiche thirty-three, thus completing
the century. The allocation of an extra canto to
the first of the three divisions, instead of disturbing
the balance of the parts, rather emphasizes it, since
the opening canto is really a proem, 2 and in that
sense belongs to all three parts, and especially to the
first two, throughout which Virgil remains Dante's
counsellor and guide. Still it would seem as if Dante
considered it as falling to the " Inferno " in the general
scheme, and, reckoning it so, it is extraordinary how
nearly the three cantiche correspond in point of length.
1 Cf. Epistle x, 12.
- This is shown by the position of the invocation in Canto ii ;
in the other cantiche the invocation occurs in the first canto.
282 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
The total number of lines is 14,233. Of these the
"Inferno" has 4,720, the "Purgatorio" 4,755, and
the "Paradise" 4,758. The majority of the cantos
range between 136 and 151 lines. One has 124, four
have 130, four 133, thirteen 136, sixteen 139, thirteen
145, thirteen 148, nine 151, seven 154, one 157. The
shortest cantos are VI and XI of the " Inferno," and
the longest XXXII of the "Purgatorio." The in-
equality of the component cantos renders more sur-
prising the substantial equality of the cantiche, which
appears to have been accidental. Clearly, however, it
was not an accident that determined the number and
distribution of the cantos. Dante may have been
thinking of
The song of those who sing for ever
After the music of the eternal spheres. 1
There were ten spheres, and the cantos or songs o
the " Commedia " are ten multiplied by itself, just as
Beatrice's mysterious nine is three multiplied by itself.
Combined with this we have the division of the poem
into three cantiche, and of each cantica into thirty-
three (or 33 + i) cantos that is, three and three
multiplied by the perfect number. In this arrange-
ment of the poem " the sacred poem " Dante sym-
bolized the Trinity, and probably much besides (cf.
"Vita Nuova," xxx). It is not improbable that
ninety-nine of the cantos represent the nine mobile
heavens, while the opening canto signifies the earth
or the subject around which they revolve ("Convivio,"
1 " Purg." xxx, 92-3.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 283
ii, 14); or, as he accounted nine a miracle, and
Beatrice was a nine, this may have been the guiding
principle, a proem being always supposed. Quite
possibly all these ideas were present to his mind in
the same way as he conceived of a fourfold interpreta-
tion of the canzoni and " Commedia," and a twofold
explanation of the number nine in relation to Beatrice.
6. SOURCES
The " Commedia " is distinctively a Christian poem
it is the epic of Christendom ; and therefore we natu-
rally look for the principal fount of inspiration in the
Bible, which Dante certainly did not neglect, but to
which, as certainly, he did not confine himself. Various
mediaeval legends, with which he may or may not
have been familiar, have been adduced as possible
sources of the poem, but the only precedents for a
visitation of the invisible world by a mortal man in
bodily form, as far as Dante seems to have been
aware, were two, and these are stated quite plainly in
the second canto of the " Inferno." >
Poet, who guidest me,
Regard my manhood, if it be sufficient
Ere to the arduous pass thou dost confide me.
Thou sayest, that of Sylvius the parent,
While yet corruptible, unto the world
Immortal went, and was there bodily.
But if the adversary of all evil
Was courteous, thinking of the high effect
That issue would from him, and who, and what,
1 11. 10-32.
284 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
To men of intellect unmeet it seems not ;
For he was of great Rome, and of her empire
In the empyreal heaven as father chosen ;
The which and what, wishing to speak the truth,
Were 'stablished as the holy place, wherein
Sits the successor of the greatest Peter.
Upon this journey, whence thou givest him vaunt,
Things did he hear, which the occasion were
Both of his victory and the papal mantle.
Thither went afterwards the Chosen Vessel,
To bring back comfort thence unto that Faith,
Which of salvation's way is the beginning.
But I, why thither come, or who concedes it?
I not ^Eneas am, I am not Paul,
Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it.
Thus we learn that one of Dante's sources was the
sixth book of the " Aeneid." Another was St. Paul's
Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 1 in which we find
the following passage:
" It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I
will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
" I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago,
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out
of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an
one caught up to the third heaven.
" And I knew such a man (whether in the body, or
out of the body, I cannot tell : God knoweth ;)
" How that he was caught up into paradise, and
heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a
man to utter. . . .
"And lest I should be exalted above measure
' xii, 1-7.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 285
through the abundance of the revelations, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
Satan to buffet me."
Dante must have known this testimony, being un-
doubtedly well versed in St. Paul's writings, from which
he quotes repeatedly in the " Convivio " and else-
where. It is fairly certain, however, that it is not this
passage that was most prominently in his mind in
alluding to St. Paul's journey to the abodes of disem-
bodied spirits. We have to remember that Dante was
on the eve of visiting the nether regions in the com-
pany of Virgil, who was disqualified from conducting
to and through Paradise, to which St. Paul says he
was caught up. It will be recollected also that the
prime object of Dante's pilgrimage was his conversion,
which was to be achieved by " showing him the people
of perdition." Naturally, therefore, we should expect
that this journey of St. Paul would be, like that of
Dante, to the infernal rather than the celestial king-
doms.
Now there was a well-known and widely circulated
legend in which St. Paul is depicted as traversing Hell
under the guidance of the Archangel Michael. To-
gether they witness the torments of the damned, and
it is largely through their intercessions that the lost
souls are granted a respite from their sufferings from
the ninth hour on Saturday to the first on Monday.
There existed several Latin versions of this legend,
which have been handed down in no fewer than fifty-
four manuscripts. The " Vision " was translated into
286 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
German, French, English, Danish, and Provengal, and
if Dante did not make its acquaintance in one of the
Latin versions there were said to be two Greek
originals, one of which we have it is quite probable
that he came to know of it through a Provengal trans-
lation, which is reproduced in Chaytor's " Troubadours
of Dante." 1 The resemblance between St. Paul's mythi-
cal descent into Hell with the Archangel Michael and
Dante's visit, under the conduct of Virgil, is obvious
at a glance.
There were other mediaeval legends of a like char-
acter, such as the Vision of Frate Alberico, the Vision
of Walkelin, and the Voyage of St. Brandan ; and it is
possible that Dante may have been acquainted with
some of them. Most likely, also, he had beheld
mystery plays like that at which Jacopone's young
bride perished in her gaiety and loveliness. There
were doom-pictures and carven screens on which he
may have gazed, and Advent and Lenten sermons to
which he may have hearkened. All these sights and
sounds were hints and reminders of human responsi-
bility and tribulation. In the terrible uncertainty of
life in the Middle Ages, exceeding its constant and
necessary uncertainty, the question of the future state
loomed forth from a background of despair.
Eternity was in the air far more than is the case now,
when the mightiest efforts of the intellect are directed
to the conquest of nature for the multiplication of
material appliances. Dante had barely attained middle
age when a sense of the vanity of things struck with
1 Pp. 1-4.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 287
full force his tender imagination, and at the same time
he realized that much, if not most, of the misery
afflicting mankind was due to gratuitous folly and sin.
Through the dense gloom of his spiritual night glim-
mered, like a taper in a Catholic sanctuary, bidding
men "watch and pray," the memory of the dead
Beatrice, and that memory, revived and gradually
transfigured by ceaseless meditation into a dazzling
vision of hope and blessedness, formed a precious con-
trast to the darkness and blankness of all around.
The grim figures of War and Pestilence might stalk in
the streets and fields, and Cruelty sit entrenched in
the hearts of men; but the balm and solace he had in-
vented for himself nothing could take from him. The
"Commedia" owed something to literary precedent,
something to the tone and temper, the ideas and cir-
cumstances of the age; but more to individual ex-
perience, whence came the " virtue," or motive power,
that set Dante's latent powers in action. We may put
it in this way. To Dante the Florence of his unruly
affections and implacable enemies not the beloved
ideal Florence was hell; his mean and lonely wan-
derings were purgatory ; and the peaceful atmosphere
of his last refuge, paradise. " The kingdom of heaven
is within you," and it was only perhaps in his last
days that he possessed the repose of mind and detach-
ment from worldly interests that enabled him to
describe with so much ardour and sincerity the serene
joys of the contemplative life, which, like his Divine
Master, he had pronounced more than once "the better
part."
288 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
It is necessary to distinguish between the spiritual
and material sources of the " Commedia," or, to adopt
the philosophical terminology of the " Convivio," l its
efficient and material causes. Although in many cases
they must have been coincident, there is evidently a
difference in principle between the forces that gener-
ated the poem and the matter of which it is composed.
The contents of the "Commedia" are extremely
multifarious. Dante poured into it, as into a vast melt-
ing-pot, his accumulated stores of learning, whether
acquired from books, from observation, or from con-
verse with his fellow-men. It is an inventory, not only
of the writer's mental furniture, but of mediaeval ac-
complishment. And here we realize the advantage
of a careful study of Dante's minor works. From the
" Epistles," the " Vita Nuova," the " Canzoniere," the
" De Vulgari Eloquentia," the " De Monarchia," and
the " Convivio," rays converge and blend as in a
prism ; and in reading the " Commedia " we seem, in
a sense, to be treading familiar ground. Old facts, old
notions re-appear, but set as gems in a new and lucu-
lent context. Not, of course, that the whole of the
" Commedia " exists as ore in the poems and treatises
of former years; nor that Dante's writings are every-
where perfectly consistent, but in indicating the origins
and ingredients of his lesser compositions, we have
practically anticipated the bibliography of the " Com-
media." The list of authorities includes the Holy
Scriptures, the Latin Fathers, classic Roman litera-
ture, Boethius and Orosius, mediaeval translations of
1 iv, 20.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 289
Aristotle, the translation of the treatise on the Celestial
Hierarchy, ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, the
works of St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and Richard
of St. Victor, the verse and prose writings of the
Troubadours, North French romances, the oral in-
struction of Brunette Latini, and oral traditions.
7. COSMOGRAPHY
One subject that must be considered anew in con-
nection with the "Commedia" is Dante's cosmo-
graphy. There is no need to say more on his astro-
nomical system so fully expounded in the " Convivio,"
but neither in that treatise nor in any other did it fall
to his lot to bestow equal attention on geography,
while the situations and physical features of Hell and
Purgatory, unlike those of Paradise, remained quite
untouched by his speculations. Just as in the
"Aeneid," so in the "Commedia," Hell and Pur-
gatory Virgil has a dim notion of Purgatory are
placed in the confines of the ea*fth, and we are left in
no uncertainty as to their whereabouts.
First, as to the earth in general. Although Dante
nowhere supplies a regular description of the globe,
it is clear from various passages that the omission
was not caused by a want of definite conceptions on
the subject. We know from the " De Aqua et Terra "
that he considered the figure of the earth a perfect
sphere, not elliptical like that of the moon, 1 and the
surface as consisting of land and water in unequal
1 xix.
U
2Qo HANDBOOK TO DANTE
proportions, the latter greatly preponderating. The
habitable portion, or such of the land as rises above
the sea, he computed to extend 180 degrees, or half
the total longitude, from the mouths of the Ganges,
the eastern limit, to Gades (Cadiz), where the Pillars
of Hercules had marked the western bound. It com-
prised 67 degrees of latitude, reckoned not from the
Equator, but from Lat. 12 45' N. This, it may be
observed, was the teaching of Alfraganus.
Both the North and the South Pole are stated in
the "Convivio" (iii, 5) to be covered by the ocean,
and Dante must have imagined that Africa was bounded
on the south by the ocean at 12 45' N. of the Equator,
which would tally with his description of the habitable
earth in the " De Aqua et Terra " as a crescent. In
the " De Monarchia " (i, 14) Dante speaks of the
Scythians as living beyond the seventh clima, which
corresponds with our term zone> and from which we
get our word climate. Alfraganus divides the habit-
able earth into seven>dtmata, the first, or that which
is nearest the Equator, being occupied by the Gara-
mantes, 1 whom Virgil names with the Indi as the
uttermost of the nations (" Aeneid," vi, 794). In the
"Paradise" (xxvii, 80- 1) Dante refers to himself as
traversing " from midst to end " the whole arc formed
by the first clima a statement which demands a word
of explanation.
Among other Latin writings Dante was acquainted
with Cicero's " Somnium Scipionis " (in the sixth book
of the " De Republica "), as is shown not only by the
1 "Conv." Hi, 5.i
THE " COMMEDIA "MECHANISM 291
correspondence of the planetary system expounded in
it as far as it extends with Dante's scheme in the
"Convivio" and "Commedia," but by the fact that
he borrows from it the idea of surveying the con-
temptible " threshing-floor," the earth, from the alti-
tude of the stars. His first look- is recorded in
" Paradiso," xxii, 135; 151-2. In " Paradiso," xxvii,
75-85, is mentioned a second look, when he "saw
the mad track of Ulysses past Gades." This is an
allusion to the last voyage of the old Greek recounted
in the twenty-sixth canto of the " Inferno." l The
story is not to be found in the " Odyssey," and, as
no original has been traced, it is supposed to have
been invented by Dante. Upon it is based Tenny-
son's well-known poem " Ulysses." The adventure is
one of the very few episodes, or interludes, of the
"Commedia," related with some measure of com-
pleteness, and the narrator is the hero himself:
When I
From Circe had departed, who concealed me
More than a year there near unto Gaeta,
Or ever yet ^Eneas named it so,
Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
For my old father, nor the due affection
Which joyous should have made Penelope,
Could overcome within me the desire
I had to be experienced of the world,
And of the vice and virtue of mankind.
But I put forth upon the open sea,
With one sole ship and that small company
By which I never had deserted been.
1 11. 90-142.
292 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain,
Far as Morocco and the isle of Sardes,
And the others which that sea bathes round about.
I and my company were old and slow,
When at that narrow passage we arrived,
Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,
That man no farther onward should adventure.
On the right hand behind me left I Seville,
And on the other already had left Ceuta.
"O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand
Perils," I said, "have come unto the West,
To this so inconsiderable vigil
Which is remaining of your senses still,
Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,
Following the sun, of the unpeopled world?
Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge."
So eager did I render my companions,
With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,
That then I hardly could have held them back.
And having turned our stern unto the morning,
We of the oars made wings for our mad flight,
Evermore gaining on the larboard side.
Already all the stars of the other pole l
The night beheld, and ours so very low
It did not rise above the ocean floor.
Five times rekindled, and as many quenched
Had been the splendour underneath the moon,
Since we had entered into the deep pass,
When there appeared to us a mountain, dim
From distance, and it seemed to me so high
As I had never any one beheld.
Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping ;
For out of the new land a whirlwind rose,
And smote upon the forepart of the ship.
Our pole or sky, with its stars.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 293
Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,
At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,
And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,
Until the sea above us closed again.
It is evident from this account that Ulysses had
reached the southern Pacific Ocean, and it is in-
tended that we should believe that " he was the first
that ever burst into that silent sea." And the moun-
tain? To all appearance l it was the Mount of Pur-
gatory, with whose position at the antipodes of Jeru-
salem it may be considered to accord. According to
Dante, Jerusalem was the centre of the habitable
earth a notion apparently derived from Ezechiel, v,
5 : " This is Jerusalem : I have set her in the midst
of the nations, and countries are round about her."
At the commencement of Canto II of the "Purga-
torio " Dante thus conveys to us that it was dawn at
the Mount of Purgatory:
Already had the sun the horizon reached
Whose circle of meridian covers o'er
Jerusalem with its most lofty point,
And night that opposite to him revolves
Was issuing forth from Ganges with the Scales,
That fall from out her hand when she exceedeth ;
So that the white and the vermilion cheeks
Of beautiful Aurora, where I was,
By too great age were changing into orange. 2
By the horizon is meant the western horizon, i.e.,
the sun was setting at Jerusalem; and therefore it was
1 For an explanation of its height, see " Purg." xxviii, 96-102.
2 "Purg."ii, 1-9.
294 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
midnight at the Ganges, which was distant from Jeru-
salem one-fourth of the circumference of the earth,
and mid-day at Gades, which was equally distant in
the opposite direction, and half-way between Jeru-
salem and the Mount of Purgatory. Consequently,
when the sun, travelling from east to west, was at its
zenith at Gades, it was beginning to rise at the Mount
of Purgatory, which had a common horizon with Jeru-
salem that in which Gades lay
We have now ascertained the position of Purgatory.
The next point to be determined is the situation of
Hell, and regarding that we have plain information
in the last canto of the " Inferno," where Virgil re-
solves Dante's perplexity, as they are on the eve of
emerging from its gloomy depths :
Thou still imaginest
Thou art beyond the centre, where I grasped
The hair of the fell worm who mines the world.
That side thou wast, so long as I descended;
When round I turned me, thou didst pass the point
To which things heavy draw from every side,
And now beneath the hemisphere art come
Opposite that which overhangs the vast
Dry land, and 'neath whose cope was put to death
The Man who without sin was born and lived.
Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere
Which makes the other face of the Judecca.
Here it is morn when it is evening there ;
And he who with his hair a stairway made us
Still fixed remaineth as he was before.
Upon this side he fell down out of heaven ;
And all the land, that whilom here emerged,
For fear of him made of the sea a veil,
And came to our hemisphere ; and peradventure
THE "COMMEDI A "MECHANISM 295
To flee from him, what on this side appears
Left the place vacant here, and back recoiled. 1
This passage shows that, according to Dante's con-
ceptions, the earth underwent vast physical changes
at the time of the fall of Lucifer. Prior to that the
distribution of the dry land was more equal there
was a southern continent. When Satan, cast out of
heaven, impinged head foremost on the surface of
the earth opposite to Jerusalem, this continent dis-
appeared and went to augment the aggregation of dry
land in the northern hemisphere. On the same occa-
sion the Mount of Purgatory was thrown up, being
composed of the material displaced by the precipita-
tion of the gigantic form of the arch-rebel through the
interior of the earth as far as the centre. Dante
poetically attributes these seismic revolutions to the
terror of the earth which recoiled from contact with
the accursed person of the Evil One. It was by the
shaft sunk by " the fell worm who mines the world "
that Dante arrived at the Mount of Purgatory, which
thus communicated with the lowest depth of Hell.
Hell itself lies in the northern hemisphere and under-
neath the crust of the habitable earth, of which, as
we have seen, Jerusalem is the centre.
Where was the gate of Hell? There is, perhaps,
no absolute need to assume that there was only one
gate; but, as regards Dante, it is reasonable to sup-
pose that he entered Hell from Italy, and, more par-
ticularly, from the ruins of ancient Cumae, where there
1 " Inf." xxxiv, 104-26.
296 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
was a vast subterranean grotto. This is suggested by
the considerable likeness between the first canto of
the " Inferno " and the commencement of Book VI
of the " Aeneid," the forest of the former representing
the nemus of the latter, and the mountain the arces.
Aeneas descended into Hell by this route, and as
Virgil, who recounts his journey, is Dante's guide, he
would naturally conduct him by the same path, which,
we cannot help thinking, was the common highway.
The general configuration of Dante's Hell, thanks
to his precise and perspicuous treatment of details, is
easily grasped. It is true that he does not lay himself
out, in any single passage, to project a complete de-
sign, though he takes some trouble to specify par-
ticular features, where such explanation appears to
him necessary. Broadly speaking, the topography is
assumed, but, in marking the stages of his progress
Dante intimates the nature and succession of different
parts, and thus we are enabled to piece together an
idea of the whole.
8. HELL: PHYSICAL FEATURES
Hell consists of nine concentric and diminishing
circles surrounding an abyss, at the bottom of which
is the upper half of Lucifer. It is impossible to im-
prove on Boccaccio's comparison of a funnel (cornd),
and he is doubtless right in holding that the tiers or
ledges are cavernous that is, that they extend to a
considerable distance under a natural canopy, " thus
allowing for lake and marsh and wood, and the vasta
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 297
campagna of the arch-heretics " (Gaspary). Hell,
therefore, has somewhat the form of a vast amphi-
theatre.
Dante does not state its dimensions, but its middle
point is in a direct line with Jerusalem and the Mount
of Purgatory, while its uppermost and widest circle
appears to approach the earth's crust at Cumae, or, at
any rate, somewhere in Italy. Now, according to
Dante's computations in the " Convivio," l Rome is
about equidistant from the Equator and the North
Pole, and the actual circumference of the earth at
this latitude may be roughly taken at 17,000 miles.
But according to Alfraganus, Dante's authority, the
diameter of the earth is 6,500 miles, and on this sup-
position the uppermost circumference of Hell, under
latitude 45, would be roughly 14,000 miles, and its
vertical depth to the centre of the earth, where Lucifer
is, about 2,200.
On passing within the gate, Dante finds himself in
an ante-Hell, the occupants of which are " the melan-
choly souls of those who lived withouten infamy or
praise " commingled with the " caitiff choir " of angels,
who had been neither rebellious nor faithful to God,
but for self. The poet then reaches the bank of a
great river the Acheron, which divides the ante-Hell
from Hell proper. In the same way the Styx is the
partition between the fourth and fifth circle, while
Phlegethon closes the seventh circle, and in the ninth
or lowest circle is a frozen lake formed by the waters
of Cocytus. These four rivers are really one and the
1 iii, 5-
298 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
same, and are fed by the tears of humanity welling
from the figure of an Old Man on the summit of
Mount Ida in Crete.
A grand old man stands in the mount erect,
Who holds his shoulders turn'd tow'rds Damietta,
And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.
His head is fashioned of refined gold,
And of pure silver are the arms and breast ;
Then is he brass as far down as the fork.
From that point downward all is chosen iron,
Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay,
And more he stands on that than on the other.
Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure
Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears,
Which gathered together, perforate that cavern.
From rock to rock they fall into this valley,
Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form ;
Then downward go along this narrow sluice
Unto that point where is no more descending ;
They form Cocytus. l
Dante, having entered by the gate situated at the
western extremity, proceeds from right to left. " The
idea of descent,'' says Ruskin, " is in Dante's mind
spiral (as of a worm's or serpent's coil) throughout;
even to the mode of Geryon's flight, ruota e discende;
and Minos accordingly indicates which circle any sin-
ner is to be sent to, in a most graphically labyrinthine
manner, by twisting his tail round himself so many
times, necessarily thus marking the level" ("Fors
Clavigera," Letter XXIII.)
There seems to be no doubt that the descent is
spiral at any rate, in the sense of the path connect-
1 " Inf." xiv, 103-19.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 299
ing circle with circle being lateral, not vertical. What
is not so clear is whether the circles themselves are
spiral. The term conca (shell), which Dante applies to
Hell in "Inferno," xi, 16, rather suggests a spiral
cavity, but, on this assumption, the path would be
continuous. Why then do we hear of a descent * when
Dante passes from one circle to another, and that at
a definite point, of which Virgil knows? 2 A demon
keeps guard at the points of descent, just as an angel
is warden at a Purgatorial stairway.
In passing from the sixth to the seventh circle, the
travellers arrive at a precipice down which they take
their way over loose stones, and Virgil mentions that
the ravine had been formed since his previous visit to
the nether hell at the time of the Crucifixion. At
the corresponding point in the seventh circle, Phlege-
thon rushes downward in an infernal Niagara Fall,
and Dante and Virgil have to be transported to the
eighth circle on the back of the monster Geryon, who
is bidden by the Guide to make his circles large and
his descent little.
Onward he goeth, swimming slowly, slowly,
Wheels and descends. 3
From the eighth to the ninth circle, or the floor,
the poets are deposited by the giant Antaeus. Dante
did not complete the tour of the bolgia around which
the giants are immured, and Antaeus, at Virgil's re-
quest, lets them down along the face of the rocky
precipice.
1 "Inf."vi, 14; vii, 16, 100. 2 "ImV'xi, 115.
3 "Inf." xvii, 115-6.
300 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
The seventh circle has three subdivisions (gtront,
" rounds,") and the eighth is called Malebolge, be-
cause it has ten trenches (bolgie, lit. " wallets "), which
are connected by bridges. These subdivisions differ
from the large upper circles only in respect of size,
since they are complete circles, not segments of
circles, each being lower and smaller in proportion as
they approach the centre. The trenches of Malebolge
are connected by bridges a fact which goes to sup-
port the theory that has been broached with reference
to the upper circles. Around the pit of Hell, which is
a sort of hollow pedestal, are chained giants, whose
forms tower above the bank of the last two bolgie from
the navel upwards. The ninth circle, the floor of Hell,
has four divisions, named Caina, Antenora, Tolomea,
and Judecca.
9. CLASSIFICATION OF SINS
Having dealt with the partitions, we have now to
enumerate the categories of sinners consigned to those
regions. This it will be convenient to do in a tabular
form, naming at the same time, where possible, the
presiding demons.
10. PURGATORY: FORM AND DIMENSIONS
As regards shape, divisions, and direction, the
Mount of Purgatory may almost be termed a replica
of Hell. But there is an important difference. Hell is
underground it is plunged in gloom; whereas Purga-
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 301
CANTO. CIRCLE. DEMON.
SINNERS.
Ill j Ante-Hell
Nonentities and neutral
angels
IV I
Unbaptized infants and
virtuous heathen
V II Minos
The Wanton
VI
III Cerberus
The Gluttonous
VII
IV Pluto
The Covetous
VIII
V Phlegyas
The Irascible
IX, X, XI
VI ! Furies
Heresiarchs
XII-XVII
VII
The Violent
XII
Girone i Minotaur
Tyrants
XIII
ii i Harpies
Suicides
XIV, XV
,, iii Capaneus
The Impious
XVI
Sodomites
XVII
Usurers
XVIII-XXX
VIII
_
The Fraudulent
XVIII
Bolgia i
Seducers and Panders
XVIII
Flatterers
XIX
iii
Simoniacs
XX
' v
Soothsayers
XXI, XXII
XXIII
vi
10
Demons
Peculators
Hypocrites
XXIV, XXV
i) vii
Thieves
XXVI, XXVII
viii
Evil Counsellors
XXVIII
,, ix
Schismatics
XXIX, XXX
x
Alchemists and Forgers
XXXI
Pit of Hell
_
Giants
XXXII-XXXIV
IX
_
Traitors :
XXXII
Caina
_
To their kindred
XXXII, XXXIII
Antenora |
To their country
XXXIII
Tolomea i
To their friends
XXXIV
Judecca
Lucifer
To their lords and
benefactors
302 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
tory is in the open air, and bathed in sunlight. Herein
Dante departs from precedents set by mediaeval
dreamers, and also, it may be said by Virgil, whose
spirit-world is wholly in the interior of the earth.
The Mount of Purgatory, as we saw, is an island in
the Southern Pacific, and, as far as Dante has de-
scribed it, is chiefly remarkable for its height. It will
be recollected that Ulysses says of the mountain, near
which his vessel foundered, and which it appears safe
to identify with the Mount of Purgatory :
It seemed so high
As I had never any one beheld. 1
If this mountain is not the Mount of Purgatory, the
reference is rather pointless, but it becomes full of
significance, if Ulysses was making for that forbidden
strand, though unwittingly, without safe-conduct. The
Mount of Purgatory was the only land in that waste of
waters, and one feature of it is mentioned by anticipa-
tion, in the "Inferno" namely, Lethe. Its extra-
ordinary altitude is again noted in the " Purgatorio," ~
where it is said:
Its summit was so high it vanquished sight.
It was proportionately steep, since Dante con-
tinues :
And the hill side precipitous far more
Than line from middle quadrant to the centre.
That is, the ascent was at an angle of considerably
more than forty-five degrees. Dante constantly uses
1 "Inf."xxvi, 134-5. 2 iv, 40-2.
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 303
the phrase precipice of the downward slope of Hell,
so that the facilis descensus of the latter region is con-
trasted with the arduous incline of Purgatory, up
which, as a matter of fact, he has to climb on hands
and knees.
If we might judge from the term isoletta (" Purga-
torio," i, 100), its circumference was not great, but the
expression may be used not in relation to other
islands, but to the vast expanse of the celestial
regions, of which it is the vestibule. Cato has just
said:
For 'twere not fitting that the eye o'ercast
By any mist should go before the first
Angel, who is of those of Paradise. 1
Dante, as we have observed, more than once,
speaks contemptuously of the earth as a mere thresh-
ing-floor.* In the Duke Caetano di Sermoneta's plan
of the universe as conceived by Dante, the Mount of
Purgatory is depicted on a scale not inferior to that of
Hell, being shown as a huge pyramidal projection
with a tufted apex. In considering its size, account
must be taken of the quantity of material of which it
was composed. Some are of opinion that this included
not merely the soil displaced by Lucifer in the south-
ern hemisphere, but that from the hollow of Hell as
well. This view depends on an interpretation of
11. 125-6 of the thirty-fourth canto of the "Inferno,"
which we have not adopted, but it may be correct.
Dante arrived at the Mount of Purgatory from the
1 "Purg." i, 97-9. 2 "Par." xxii; " De Mon."
3 o 4 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
bowels of the earth. This was not the regular route.
Spirits destined to undergo purgation assemble at the
mouth of the Tiber (" Purgatorio," ii, 100-105), whence
they are transported in a barque propelled by the
fanning of an angel's wings. They alight on a shelv-
ing shore, above which towers the well-nigh perpen-
dicular steep. The lower part forms the Ante-Purga-
tory; the upper, Purgatory proper, which is divided
into seven cornices. At the summit is the Earthly
Paradise, which, in ordinary accounts, was located in
the East of Asia. The ascent from the sea-shore is by
means of a crooked path in the cloven rock; imme-
diately before the gate of Purgatory is a stairway of
three steps, and from the first to the second cornice is
a rude stairway likened to the steps that lead up from
Florence to the Church of the Miniato. Thereafter
the approaches are much easier, but each new cornice
is entered by a stairway, with an angel for gatekeeper.
The Earthly Paradise is watered by two streams
springing from one fount Lethe and Eunoe. The
only other feature in the Mount of Purgatory calling
for special mention is a glen in the hill below, but
apparently not far from, the gate admitting to Purga-
tory proper. This is a flowery, delightful spot the
Valley of Princes. In ascending the Mount of Purga-
tory Dante proceeds from left to right, thus taking the
opposite direction to that which he had followed in
Hell.
THE "COMMEDI A "MECHANISM 305
CANTO.
LOCALITY. SINNERS.
Ill IX
Ante- Purgatory The Negligent
III
The Foot of the Mount
Who defer repentance
through contumacy
IV
First Ridge
through sloth
V, VI
Second Ridge
till death by violence
VII, VIII
Valley of Princes
through the cares of state
(IX)X-XII
(Gate) Cornice I
The Proud
XIII, XIV
II
The Envious
XV, XVI,
III
The Ira&cible
XVII, XVIII
IV
The Slothful
XIX-XXI
V
The Avaricious
XXII-XXIV
VI
The Gluttonous
XXV-XXVII
VII
The Wanton
XXVII-XXXIII
Earthly Paradise
(Matilda)
ii. HEAVEN: ECONOMY
The system of the Ten Heavens has been already
expounded in the chapter on the " Convivio," where
also it was observed that the Empyrean Heaven is the
abode of the Blessed. Nevertheless, when Dante is
caught up from the Earthly Paradise to the Heaven of
the Moon he beholds certain spirits, and so likewise
in the other heavens, which he visits in succession. In
Canto IV of the "Paradiso," Beatrice explains the
reason to him. Plato, she tells him, erred in saying
that the soul at death returns to its natal star. Spirits
merely manifest themselves in the lower heavens to
indicate degrees of blessedness.
They showed themselves here, 1 not because allotted
The sphere had been to them, but to give sign
Of the celestial which is least exalted.
I.e. in the Heaven of the Moon;
X
Par." iv, 37-9.
306 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Since the various degrees are symbolical, the topic
properly belongs to the following chapter, but for the
sake of completeness, it will be well to set forth the
apparent distribution of the spirits in the third great
division of the after-world.
CANTO. HEAVEN.
ANGELS.
SPIRITS.
I-IV Moon
Angels
Those who have bro-
ken vows of chastity
under compulsion
V Mercury
Archangels
Great Men
VI-IX Venus
Principalities
Lovers
X-XIII
Sun
Powers
Philosophers
(Christian)
XIV-XVII
XVIII-XX
Mars
Jupiter
Virtues
Dominations
Martyrs and Crusaders !
Just Rulers
XXI-XXII
Saturn
Thrones
The Contemplative
XXII-XXVII
Fixed Stars
Cherubim
Harvest of the Spheres.
Apostles
XXVIII-XXIX
Primum Mobile
or Crystalline
Seraphim
(Beatrice)
XXX-XXXIII
Empyrean
(St. Bernard)
Dante's ascent from glory to glory is accomplished
without material aid. Having been purged of mortal
dross, he rises by a natural law, and is not conscious
of the transit. Time after time he merely finds him-
self in a new and higher heaven; and the motive
power is derived from Beatrice's look. There appears,
therefore, to be no occasion for stairways similar to
those that are found in Hell and Purgatory; yet this
feature is not altogether lacking. It is met with in the
Heaven of Saturn.
Within the crystal which, around the world
Revolving, bears the name of its dear leader,
THE "COMMEDIA" MECHANISM 307
Under whom every wickedness lay dead,
Coloured like gold on which the sunshine gleams,
A stairway I beheld to such a height
Uplifted, that mine eyes pursued it not. 1
It reaches to the Empyrean, and is identical with
Jacob's Ladder ("Paradise," xxii, 6i-72). 2 The em-
pyrean, the Celestial Paradise, resembles the earthly
Paradise, only that it is infinitely more glorious. There
is a River of Light
'Twixt two banks,
Depicted with an admirable spring. 3
But it is all symbolical, apparent.
The river and the topazes
Going in and out, and the laughing of the herbage,
Are of their truth foreshadowing prefaces. 4
In other words, the River of Light is the grace of God,
the flowers are souls, and the topazes are ministering
angels.
In conclusion, it may be pointed out that parallel-
ism is not confined to the Terrestrial Paradise and
1 "Par." xxi, 26-31.
a Mr. Gardner remarks: "Although the ladder only becomes
visible in the seventh heaven, yet, just as Jacob's Ladder rests
upon the earth, so (metaphorically speaking) does Dante's upon
the shore of the mountain island of Purgatory. ... In an earlier
passage it is indicated to him by Beatrice that it is a ladder he is
mounting, and that the lower heavens are merely the stairway
of the Eternal Palace" ("Dante's Ten Heavens," pp. 19-20,
2nded.). Cf. "Par." xxi, 7-9.
3 "Par." xxx, 62-3. 4 lb., 76-8.
3 o8 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the Empyrean. Other examples are Limbo and the
Valley of Princes, the dilettoso monte (" Inferno," i),
and the Mount of Purgatory, which have been mis-
takenly identified; and, most notable of all, the circles
of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.
CHAPTER II
THE "COMMEDIA" PRINCIPLES AND
SYMBOLISM
i. MORAL SYSTEM: HELL
ON perusing the lists of the various classes of sin-
ners and their respective grades in Hell and
Purgatory it is natural to enquire whether the order or
succession is based on any principle, and, if so, on
what. Probably it will be recognized that there is an
underlying principle, which is that the lower the circle,
whether in Hell or in Purgatory, the more heinous the
guilt of its occupants. This is undoubtedly the case,
but it does not carry us far enough. We want to know
why Dante regarded one sin as more venial than
another.
Now in the first place it is to be remarked that Hell
is peopled not only by bad Christians, but by heathen
both good and bad. Therefore, as is just, the code or
standard by which they are tried and the judge is
Minos, a heathen king transformed into a demon is
not the law of the Church, but the common law of
morality, as expounded by heathen philosophers. The
crimes for which these malefactors are condemned are
such as have rendered them bad citizens, bad neigh-
309
3io HANDBOOK TO DANTE
hours, or bad. friends. Those who have held aloof
from social obligations are not received within the
portals of Hell they are objects of contempt and
disgust.
It may be predicated of all the sins included in our
first table that they might have been avoided by the
light of nature without help from revelation, and that
even what may be termed ecclesiastical offences are
considered in their moral, rather than their spiritual,
aspects. Take simony, for instance. It is treated as a
species of fraud, a civil crime, a crime against the em-
pire, as in the " De Monarchia." The heretics, again,
are Epicureans, who deny the immortality of the soul
and therefore future rewards and punishments. This
is to strike at the root of all morality and fly in the
face of reason and conscience, for Dante shows in the
" Convivio " (ii, 9) that not only the noblest pagans,
but men of all creeds and races are at one on the sub-
ject. There is, consequently, no excuse. The schis-
matics, also, include not only the authors of religious
divisions, but political sedition-mongers.
The moral system of Hell is explained by Dante in
the eleventh canto of the "Inferno"; 1 and the pass-
age is so important that it must be cited at length.
Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven
Injury is the end ; and all such end
Either by force or fraud afflicteth others.
But because fraud is man's peculiar vice,
More it displeases God ; and so stand lowest
The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.
1 11. 22-90.
THE "COMMEDIA" PRINCIPLES 311
All the first circle of the Violent is ;
But since force may be used against three persons,
In three rounds 'tis divided and constructed.
To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbours can we
Use force ; I say on them and on their things,
As thou shall hear with reason manifest.
A death by violence, and painful wounds,
Are to our neighbour given ; and in his substance
Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies;
Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly,
Marauders and freebooters, the first round
Tormenteth all in companies diverse.
Man may lay violent hands upon himself
And his own goods ; and therefore in the second
Round must perforce without avail repent
Whoever of your world deprives himself,
W T ho games, and dissipates his property
And weepeth there, where he should jocund be.
Violence can be done the Deity,
In heart denying and blaspheming Him,
And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.
And for this reason doth the smallest round
Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors,
And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart.
Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung
A man may practice upon him who trusts,
And him who doth no confidence imburse.
This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers
Only the bond of love which Nature makes ;
Wherefore within the second circle nestle
Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,
Falsifications, theft, and simony,
Panders and barrators, and the like filth.
By the other mode forgotten is that love
Which Nature makes, and what is after added,
From which there is a special faith engendered.
Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is
Of the Universe, upon which Dis is seated,
Whoever betrays for ever is consumed.
3i2 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Thus far, it will be observed, Virgil enlightens
Dante with reference only to the three lowest circles
the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth with their sub-
divisions. When he speaks of ihejirst circle, he means
the first relatively to the stage at which they have now
arrived. What of the upper circles ? Knowledge is not
denied.
And I: "My Master, clear enough proceeds
Thy reasoning, and full well distinguishes
This cavern, and the people who possess it.
But tell me, those within the fat lagoon
Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat,
And who encounter with such bitter tongues,
Wherefore are they inside of the red city
Not punished, if God has them in his wrath,
And if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?"
And unto me he said : " Why wanders so
Thine intellect from that which it is wont?
Or, sooth, thy mind, where is it elsewhere looking?
Hast thou no recollection of those words
With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses
The dispositions three that Heaven abides not
Incontinence and Malice, and insane
Bestiality? And how Incontinence
Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts?
If thou regardest this conclusion well,
And to thy mind recallest who they are
That up outside are undergoing penance, 1
Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons
They separated are, and why less wroth
Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer."
The inhabitants of Hell, then, are grouped into
three main classes the incontinent, the malicious,
1 I.e. those in the Upper circles of Hell.
THE "COMMEDIA" PRINCIPLES 313
and the insanely criminal, the last of whom are
sheer brutes. This classification is borrowed from the
seventh book of Aristotle's " Nicomachean Ethics."
Witte, in his essay on "The Ethical Systems of
'Inferno' and 'Purgatorio,'" observes: 1 "To com-
plete the quotation, Virgil has to include Aristotle's
third class of evil-doing, due to ' mad brutishness '
(0/7/xorTje), which, however, is foreign to Dante's system.
The Dante commentators go searching for this un-
happy crime, matta bestialitade, in almost every corner
of Hell as diligently as for envy and pride, but all in
vain." It is strange that this difficulty should exist,
since to us the three-fold division of Hell, marked by
the intervals between the first six and the two follow-
ing circles; and, again, between the eighth and the
ninth circles Dante being transported across the
former by Geryon, and across the latter by Antaeus
clearly points to the ninth circle as the quarter of the
criminally insane. Who are the occupants of this
circle? They are giants, traitors, and Lucifer. All are
mad. The giants and Lucifer prove this by having
fought against God, which is the acme of madness,
while the enormity of treason is represented as poss-
ible only to those in whom wickedness has quenched
the light of reason.
In the " Convivio ' (iii, 7) Dante, in distinguishing
the degrees of the scale of being from the highest to
the lowest, remarks that many men are so vile and of so
base a condition that they appear as they were nothing
else than brutes; and in the same treatise (iv, 7) he
1 Lawrence and Wicksteed's tr., p. 127.
314 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
asserts that a man without reason is no longer a man
but a "brute animal," a "beast." By "madness"
Dante does not intend that such " animals " do not
possess the faculty of adapting means to ends they
may be cunning enough but that they have lost all
perception of right and wrong. They are totally aban-
doned and depraved monsters who combine violence
with fraud.
If we turn to the thirty-first canto of the " Inferno,"
we shall find the following comment regarding the
giants :
Certainly Nature, when she left the making
Of animals like these, did well indeed
In taking such executors from Mars ;
And if of elephants and whales she doth not
Repent her, whosoever looketh subtl)'
More just and more discreet will hold her for it ;
For where the argument of intellect
Is added unto evil will and power,
No rampart can the people make against it. 1
In the succeeding canto Dante sees Count Ugolino
gnawing the skull of Count Ruggieri, and thus accosts
him:
O thou who showest by such bestial sign
Thy hatred against him whom thou art eating,
Tell me the wherefore. 2
The most startling proof of all is found in the state-
ments of Frate Alberigo in Canto XXXIII. In the
passage of the " Convivio," before referred to (iv, 7),
Dante explains that the words, " who is dead and
goeth through the world," in Canzone III, signify a
1 "Inf." xxxi, 49-57. - "Inf." xxxii, 133-5.
THE "COMMEDIA" PRINCIPLES 315
very vile person a beast. Now Dante meets in the
nethermost circle of Hell the souls of certain individ-
uals, whose bodies are alive, and the Frate, who is of
the number, thus accounts for the phenomenon :
And he to me: " How may my body fare
Up in the world, no knowledge I possess.
Such an advantage hath this Ptolomaea,
That oftentimes the soul descendeth here
Sooner than Atropos in motion sets it ;
And that thou mayest more willingly remove
From off my countenance these glassy tears,
Know that, as soon as any soul betrays
As I have done, his body by a demon
Is taken from him, who thereafter rules it,
Until his time has wholly been revolved.
Itself down rushes into such a cistern ;
And still perchance above appears the body
Of yonder shade that winters here behind me.
This thou should'st know, if thou hast just come clown;
It is Ser Branca d'Oria, and many years
Have passed away, since he was thus locked up.
" I think," said I to him, " thou dost deceive me;
For Branca d'Oria is not dead as yet,
And eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes."
" In moat above," said he, " of Malebranche
There where is boiling the tenacious pitch,
As yet had Michel Zanche not arrived,
When this one left a devil in his stead
In his own body, and one near of kin,
Who made together with him the betrayal.
But hitherward stretch out thy hand forthwith,
Open mine eyes ; " And open them I did not,
And to be rude to him was courtesy.
Dante concludes :
Ah, Genoese ! ye men at variance
With every virtue, full of every vice !
3 i6 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Wherefore are ye not scattered from the world?
For with the vilest spirit of Romagna
I found of you one such, who for his deeds
In soul already in Cocytus bathes,
And still above in body seems alive! r
This evidence, it appears to us, is convincing that
mad brutishness is the sin punished in the ninth circle
of Hell. Treason, however, as Dante shows in the
eleventh canto, is an aggravated form of fraud. The
intervals, therefore, point to a much deeper degree of
guilt than a difference in the general quality of the
offence. The complex nature of Dante's system may
be illustrated by another circumstance. The first six
circles are allotted to sins of incontinence or want of
self-control. Injury, in these cases, is not the end.
For all that the sixth circle, in which the heretics are
confined, is included within the walls of the City of
Dis. This is apparently because incontinence of
thought is potentially the source of many crimes,
especially of impiety and blasphemy, which are pun-
ished in the seventh circle as violence against God, but
not less directly of all sins that imply any degree of
malice or deliberation. Thus it may be termed the
inception of that mad brutishness, which is not less,
but more mad, because it is deliberate, and signifies
the widest departure from rational and virtuous prin-
ciples in act. As Ruskin puts it: " It is necessary to
serpent-tail this pit with the upper hell by a district
for insanity without deed; the Fury which has brought
horror to the eyes, and hardness to the heart, and yet,
1 " Inf." xxxiii, 122-57.
THE " COMMEDIA "PRINCIPLES 317
having possessed itself of noble persons, issues in no
malicious crime. Therefore the sixth circle of the
upper hell is walled in together with the central pit, as
one grievous city of the dead." 1
If mad brutishness expresses the deepest degree of
guilt in respect of " man's peculiar vice," other sins of
malice are divided into two large categories of violence
and fraud. Dante was clearly indebted for this classi-
fication to Cicero's " De Officiis" (i, 13, 41): "Since
injury may be wrought in two modes, that is either by
violence or by fraud, fraud seems as it were proper to
a fox, violence to a lion ; each is most alien to man,
but fraud is worthy of the greater hatred." There is a
reminiscence of this distinction in the confession of
Guido da Montefeltro (" Inferno," xxvii, 73-75).
When I was still the form of bone and pulp
My mother gave to me, the deeds I did
Were not those of a lion, but a fox.
It undoubtedly causes some surprise to discover the
usurers, not among the fraudulent, but among the
violent. Dante himself is perplexed at this arrange-
ment, and interrogates Virgil concerning the reason.
It is explained to him 2 that the usurer does violence
to Nature and the laws of God, which ordain that
man should live and thrive on the fruits of the earth
and honest labour. It may be said that usury has the
sanction of custom, and that those who suffer from
it, submit to its exactions voluntarily and with their
1 " Fors Clavigera," Letter XXIV.
* "Inf." xi, 96-111.
3 i8 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
eyes open. It is, therefore, not exactly fraud, but it
is on the border line, and there, as a matter of fact,
we find its professors
Upon the outermost
Head of that seventh circle. l
This is another instance of what Ruskin calls " ser-
pent-tailing."
Another matter for surprise respects the persons
Dante makes examples of. The fact is, that he first
constructs his hell in accordance with what appears to
him philosophical accuracy, and thereafter assigns his-
torical characters, personal acquaintances, and others
of whom he has knowledge to the circles designed for
the punishment of those crimes of which they have
been guilty. They may or may not have redeeming
features; if they are convicted of committing an
offence, no mercy is shown to them they are ban-
ished to the appropriate circle or gyre or bolgia, there
for ever to remain. Thus Alexander the Great, though
Dante praises him in the " Convivio " for his liberality,
is found among the tyrants in the seventh circle of
Hell. There are two explanations of this treatment.
One is that Dante deals with these personages as
types, and his praise or blame of them depends on his
immediate purpose or point of view. Cato was a
suicide, but Dante, ignoring this circumstance, sets
him over the Ante-Purgatory. Brutus, on the other
hand, suffers excruciating and ignominious torture in
the heart of Hell. But we must beware of pressing
1 "Inf." xvii, 43-4.
THE "COMMEDIA" PRINCIPLES 319
this explanation too far; otherwise Hell will be merely
a theatre for the exhibition of various sins, and the
sinners will be masquers, speaking and posing for
histrionic effect. Dante believed in an essential Hell;
and, whatever inconsistencies may be detected in his
attitude towards individuals, we cannot doubt that he
sought to frame his procedure in conformity with the
strictest justice. There must, therefore, be another
explanation, which Ruskin, as we believe, states quite
correctly: "You might at first think that Dante's
divisions were narrow and artificial, in assigning each
circle to one sin only, as if every man did not variously
commit many. But it is always one sin, the favourite,
which destroys souls. That conquered, all others fall
with it; that victorious, all others follow with it." 1
Thirdly, surprise has been felt that the penal
scheme of the " Purgatorio " does not correspond, in
all respects, with that of the " Inferno," being partly
defective, and partly redundant. The quest for pride
and envy in the economy of Hell has been inspired by
the imagined necessity of squaring the two systems.
No such necessity exists. In Hell punishments are
retributive. They are inflicted, save in the sixth circle,
for definite crimes. In Purgatory punishments are
reformatory. They are designed to correct evil in-
clinations, to eradicate the remains of the old Adam
after repentance has procured the forgiveness of sins
which must otherwise have been expiated in the
circles of Hell. Those evil inclinations have been
plainly revealed by forgiven sins, and now what is im-
1 " Fors Clavigera" (loc. "/.).
320 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
portant is the condition of the soul thus revealed. Sin
is treated no longer as a crime, but as a symptom of
a disordered state of the soul. The spirits in Hell are
lost their case is irremediable. Those in Purgatory
are wandering, but recovered sheep, which are being
brought back to the fold.
2. MORAL SYSTEM: PURGATORY
The clue to the meaning of the " Purgatorio " is
supplied in a passage of the seventeenth canto already
cited in the chapter on the " Convivio," particularly
the lines:
" Neither Creator nor a creature ever,
Son," he began, " was destitute of love
Natural or spiritual ; and thou knowest it.
The natural was ever without error ;
But err the other may by evil object,
Or by too much, or by too little vigour.
While in the first it well directed is,
And in the second moderates itself,
It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;
But when to ill it turns, and with more care
Or lesser than it ought runs after good,
'Gainst the Creator works his own creation. 1
By "evil object," Dante goes on to explain, he
means the ill of one's neighbour. Now in "Inferno,"
x, 22-3, he has stated:
Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven
Injury is the end ; and all such end
Either by force or fraud afflicteth others.
1 11. 91-102.
THE -'COMMEDIA" PRINCIPLES 321
There it is a question of the end and the means ;
here of the motives, which are Pride, Envy and Anger.
These motives operate in different ways. Anger natur-
ally manifests itself in deeds of violence; envy is
associated with ordinary forms of fraud, and pride
with the supreme crime of treason. Thus we find that,
just as the traitors are in the lowest circle of Hell, so
the proud are on the lowest cornice of Purgatory. It
was through pride that Satan fell, and that the giants
were banished to the abyss, but they are punished, not
for their pride, but for the specific crime of treason,
which was due to pride. One of the proudest spirits
in Hell is Farinata, but we meet with him in the sixth
circle, not in the ninth. The correspondence, there-
fore, as between the first, second, and third cornices
of Purgatory, and the seventh, eighth, and ninth
circles of Hell, is only general, but it is none the less
real, and, we cannot doubt, intentional. The former
are concerned with the prindpii, or seeds; the latter,
with the effettt, or fruits. 1
Both in the "Inferno" and the " Purgatorio," in
which the sins of incontinence are presented in the
same order, sexual passion is treated as more venial
than anger, on the ground that animal love has a cer-
tain kinship to spiritual love. Herein Dante differs
from his master, Aristotle, who held that anger is the
nobler emotion as implying more reason. 2 In the
" Purgatorio " anger is one of those inclinations that
have an evil object, the ill of one's neighbour, and is
not considered as a sin of excess. Accidia, spiritual
1 "Conv."iv, 16. * "Nic. Ethics," vii, 6.
Y
322 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
sloth or lukewarmness, represents the love that errs by
too little vigour, and constitutes a single category. It
is useless to look for this fault in the " Inferno," in
which Dante regards sin from a judicial point of view.
Here it is that of a spectator at the games, and the
idea is one of running a race the Christian race in
which the spirits have proved awkward competitors.
Those in the Ante-Purgatory have started late; those
on the first three cornices have not followed a straight
course, having allowed themselves to be diverted from
the true goal; those on the fourth cornice have lagged,
whilst those on the last three cornices have been hin-
dered by worldly and carnal desires. They have not
laid aside every weight nor the sin that doth so easily
beset them. Their intemperance has been a clog.
The sinners in Hell, on the other hand, have had no
share in this race. They have been without spiritual
aspirations; they have known neither the fear nor the
love of God.
As there are varying degrees of guilt or demerit in
Hell and Purgatory, so there are varying degrees of
merit in Paradise. Even in Paradise the notion of
punishment is not entirely absent, since those who
have been compelled to violate monastic vows against
their wishes form the lowest order of the Blessed.
This circumstance occasions Dante some little per-
plexity. That these spirits should suffer in con-
sequence of the force exercised against them by others
seems like a contradiction of Divine justice. On fur-
ther inquiry the punishment is discovered to be rather
apparent than real. The spirits in question are per-
THE " COMMEDIA "PRINCIPLES 323
fectly happy, perfectly content with the will of God
their King; they merely manifest themselves, they do
not reside in the Heaven of the Moon and yet they
are punished, at least formally. Why is that? Beatrice
thus explains:
If it be violence when he who suffers
Co-operates not with him who uses force,
These souls were not on that account excused;
For will is never quenched unless it will,
But operates as nature doth in fire,
If violence a thousand times distort it.
Hence if it yieldeth more or less it seconds
The force.
Many times, brother, has it come to pass
That, to escape from peril, with reluctance
That has been done it was not right to do.
At this point I desire thee to remember
That force with will commingles, and they cause
That the offences cannot be excused.
Will absolute consenteth not to evil ;
But in so far consenteth as it fears,
If it refrain, to fall into more harm. 1
We have here a second instance of the linking up
of the eternal realms. If the proud are punished in
the last circle of Hell and on the first cornice of
Purgatory, the sensual are chastened on the highest
cornice of Purgatory, and those who have broken
vows of chastity appear in the lowest of the ten
heavens.
1 "Par." iv, 73-80; 100-2; 106-12.
324 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
3. SYMBOLISM
The "Commedia" is an allegory, and in at least
two passages of the poem Dante reminds his readers
of this characteristic. The first is found in the ninth
canto of the " Inferno " (11. 61-63):
O ye who have undistempered intellects,
Observe the doctrine that conceals itself
Beneath the veil of the mysterious verses !
Again, in the eighth canto of the " Purgatorio "
(11. 18-20), he says:
Here, Reader, fix thine eyes well on the truth,
For now indeed so subtile is the veil,
Surely to penetrate within is easy.
In the former instance the "doctrine " regards the
parts which the Gorgon and the Furies play in the
torture of the damned. According to the ancient
fable, to look upon the Gorgon's head was to be
turned into stone, by which Dante intends us to
understand that the sinner is petrified with despair.
Similarly, the Furies symbolize remorse for past sins.
In the latter case, the allegory is drawn from the
familiar story of the Fall, and presumably for that
reason Dante deemed it easy to decipher. His com-
mentators have not found it so. The idea is, of course,
temptation obstructed by angelic surveillance; and
night, when vigilance is relaxed and the faculties are
lulled in slumber, is precisely the time when man is
most exposed to the suggestions of the Evil One. This
danger is recognized in the hymn of the Church,
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 325
which the spirits have just sung at Complines, as also
in Bishop Ken's well-known lines:
May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
No powers of darkness me molest.
Is that all? Perhaps Dante intimates that the ser-
pent had been a constant visitor at court, and that his
ability to harm had been destroyed by the prayer
of the penitent princes only when night the night of
death was approaching. The angels' swords are
blunted at the point to signify that the serpent is to
be bruised, not killed, or that they are to be used
merely for defence.
The punishments of the different classes of sinners
are emblematic of their sins. Everybody knows the
lines :
The passionate heart of the poet
Is whirled into folly and vice.
This is the penalty of the sensual in the " Inferno"
(v- 3i-33)-
The infernal hurricane that never rests
Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine ;
Whirling them round, and, smiting, it molests them.
In the following circle the gluttonous are punished
how? By existing in a filthy and noisome swamp,
lashed by hail, rain, and snow, symbolical of their
drinking, and rent, flayed, and quartered by Cerberus,
which is symbolical of their eating. Cerberus has
tusks; there is therefore in his composition something
of the boar as greedy an animal as the dog, and far
more uncleanly. It is noticeable also that the spokes-
man of the gluttonous is one Ciacco, whose name
326 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
signifies " hog." This may be paralleled by the
name of one of the sinners in the ninth circle, in
which, as we have shown, mad brutishness is punished
Camicione de' Pazzi. The correspondence between
the sin and the penalty is excellently observed in this
ninth circle, for pride is frigid and treason the most
cold-blooded of crimes. It will not be amiss to quote
Ruskin's remarks on this point:
" The two lower hells are for those who have wil-
fully done mischief to other people. And of these
some do open injury and some deceitful injury, and of
these the rogues are put lower, but there is a greater
distinction in the manner of sin than its simplicity or
roguery; namely, whether it be done in hot blood or
cold blood. The injurious sins, done in hot blood
that is to say, under the influence of passion are in
the midmost hell; but the sins done in cold blood,
without passion, or, more accurately, contrary to pas-
sion, far down below the freezing-point, are put in the
lowest hell: the ninth circle ... I have myself been
taken far enough down amongst the diminished circles
to see this nether hell the hell of traitors; and to
know what people do not usually know of treachery,
that it is not the fraud, but the cold-heartedness, which
is chiefly dreadful in it. Therefore this nether hell is
of ice, not fire; and of ice that nothing can break. . . .
No more wandering of the feet in labyrinth like this,
and the eyes, once cruelly tearless, now blind with
frozen tears." 1
In this connection we may not forget the Old Man
1 Loc. tit.
THE "COMMEDIA "^-SYMBOLISM 327
of Crete. The rivers of Hell really one river, which
in one place is fiery hot and in another ice-bound
are formed of the tears of all the ages gathered into one
spot, and thus the sorrows of humanity are the
material of its tormentors' torment. In these various
ways is disclosed the nature both of sin in general and
of particular sins; and the allegorical intention of the
poem, that of showing how by merit or demerit man
deserves reward or punishment, is realized.
4. ALLEGORICAL BASIS
As symbolism pervades the entire work, even to the
minutest details, it is impossible to deal with the
subject at all adequately in the present work, but there
are certain broad lines, or strands of thought, which
are expressed figuratively, and it is imperative that we
should notice them. One is the notion elaborated in
the " De Monarchia " the twofold destiny of man.
He is designed to be happy here, and happy here-
after. Philosophy, the law, Empire will secure the
former result; divinity, grace, the Church, the latter. 1
But the agencies are not entirely distinct: "The law
was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ; " 2 and
the Empire, or legitimate human government, is as
truly God's ministry as the Church. These ideas con-
stitute the backbone of the work in its philosophical
aspects.
Let us turn to the opening canto. Dante finds
himself in a forest. What does this forest signify?
1 "De Mon." iii, 16. 2 Gal. iii, 24.
328 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Undoubtedly the world of unreclaimed humanity,
which, if properly directed politically and spiritually,
would be counted a fruitful field. 1 Dante speaks of it
also as a valley, at the termination of which is a moun-
tain. Now the term " valley " is applied to Hell (e.g.,
" Inferno," iv, 9, xii, 40), and Purgatory, or the place
of repentance, is represented as a mountain. By some
the two mountains have been identified, and in a
certain sense rightly. There is no question that a
correspondence exists and was intended, but Dante
does not mean that he visited the essential, or local
Mount of Purgatory until he was conducted to it by
Virgil, who says to him:
I will be thy guide
And lead thee hence through the eternal place
Where thou shall hear the desperate lamentations,
Shalt see the ancient spirits disconsolate,
Who cry out each one for the second death ;
And thou shall see those who contenled are
Wilhin ihe fire, because ihey hope to come
Whene'er il may be, lo Ihe blessed people.'-'
The dilettoso monte, therefore, is the moral, or tem-
poral, equivalent of the Mount of Purgatory, and
especially of the Earthly Paradise, which is the sojourn
of purified spirits on the eve of translation to the
realms of eternal bliss. In the same way the forest is the
moral, or temporal, equivalent of Hell. In " Inferno,"
iv, 64-66, we meet with the identical metaphor:
We ceased nol lo advance because he spake,
But still were passing onward through the forest
The forest, say I, of ihick-crowded ghosls.
1 Isaiah, xxix, 17; xxxii, 15. - "Inf."i, 113-20.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 329
Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise are to be understood
in both a literal and an allegorical sense: the forest
and the mountain of the opening canto in an allegori-
cal sense only. In this allegorical sense the forest is
reproduced in the Earthly Paradise, where the car of
the Church is dragged by a giant (the King of France)
across the forest (from Rome to Avignon). 1 The
place in which Dante beholds the vision or pageant is
evidently far removed from the scene which is typi-
fied; and the spot in which Dante seeks to escape
from the forest of sin is equally distant from the real
Mount of Purgatory.
Dante's escape is impeded by the apparition of
three beasts a panther, a lion, and a she-wolf
which thrust him back into the low land. More alle-
gory, the source of which is not doubtful. It is plainly
derived from Jeremiah, v, 6. The beasts are em-
blematical of Lust, Pride, and Avarice respectively.
That the panther represents lust is shown by a further
reference in "Inferno," xvi, 108, in which Dante says:
I had a cord around about me girt,
And therewithal I whilom had designed
To take the panther with the painted skin.
Buti informs us that Dante was at one time a Cor-
delier, i.e. a member of the Third Order of Franciscans,
whose girdle symbolized a desire to rein in bodily
lusts. Whether this were so or not, the meaning of
the figure remains unaffected. It will be observed
that Dante's attitude towards the panther is quite
1 "Purg." xxxii, 148-60.
330 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
different from his behaviour towards the other two
beasts. He does not fear the panther; he is de-
lighted with her " variegated skin." The lion and the
wolf, on the other hand, fill him with unspeakable
terror. He thought to take the panther with his
girdle ; from the lion and the wolf he could only flee
in abject confusion. The reason is that the lustful
passion signified by the panther was in his own breast,
while the pride and avarice were those of others. The
wolf unquestionably stands for avarice, since " Pur-
gatorio " xx, 10-12, contains the malediction:
Accursed may'st thou be thou old she-wolf,
That more than all the other beasts hast prey,
Because of hunger infinitely hollow !
and later, in the same canto, Hugh Capet asks :
What more, O Avarice, canst thou do to us,
Since thou my blood so to thyself hast drawn,
It careth not for its own proper flesh? 1
Dante seems to have regarded avarice as practically
universal, 2 but as particularly reprehensible in the
clergy, who, from the Popes downwards, were addicted
to it:
In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolves
Are seen from here above o'er all the pastures.
O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still? 3
In the nineteenth canto of the " Inferno " (11. 90-
115) Dante roundly denounces Pope Nicholas for his
1 11. 82-4. u "Par." xxvii, 121-48; cf. Canz. x, 4.
3 "Par." xxvii, 55-8.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 331
simony, and identifies the papacy with the great
whore of the Revelation. It may be noted that in
Latin one of the meanings of lupa (literally a wolf) is
harlot. We are now in a position to see at whom, or
what, Dante is especially hinting in the similitude of
the she-wolf of the opening canto. It was the inter-
vention of the Curia in the affairs of Florence that
occasioned his exile and all the bitterness associated
therewith. We hear more of the whore in the last two
cantos of the " Purgatorio," where she and a giant are
represented as kissing and sinning. The giant is
Philip le Bel, " the bane of France." He is called a
giant partly on account of his great power, and partly
because that power is directed against the Empire, a
divinely appointed institution. Like the giants bound in
the Pit of Hell, he fights against God, i.e. in the person
of His anointed. It is the pride of this monarch that
is especially symbolized by the lion, which appears
simultaneously with the she-wolf. The accuracy of
this interpretation may be thus shown. In the thirty-
third canto of the " Purgatorio " ] it is said:
One sent from God shall slay the thievish woman
And that same giant, who is sinning with her.
With this compare "Inferno," i, loo-iu :
Many the animals 2 with whom she weds,
And more they shall be still, until the Greyhound
Comes, who shall make her perish in her pain.
1 H. 44-5-
2 Giants are called "animals." See "Inf." xxxi, 50.
332 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Through every city shall he hunt her down,
Until he shall have driven her back to Hell,
There from whence envy first did let her loose.
It is important to observe that Dante does not
mean the papacy itself, the death of which has been
already accomplished by the transference of the Holy
See to Avignon a fact which he laments ("Purga-
torio," xx, 85-90). It is the spirit of avarice that has
taken possession of the pastors (" Inferno," xix, 106-9)
that he wishes to see exorcised. He says of them :
Your avarice afflicts the world. 1
while he describes the Capetian dynasty as
That malignant plant
Which overshadows all the Christian world. 2
Now we have to remember that Dante, in his poem,
is a representative man living in the fourteenth cen-
tury under conditions brought about by the decay
of Christianity. Therefore the avarice of the hier-
archy, and the ambition of the Royal house of France,
are the chief external hindrances to the reformation of
society, the frailty of human nature which is too easily
allured by "trivial good" (" Purgatorio," xvi, 91),
" the false images of good " (" Purgatorio," xxx, 131),
" things fallacious," " little girl or other vanity of such
brief use" ("Purgatorio," xxxi, 56, 59-60), being a
third and internal hindrance.
Commentators are apt to forget Dante's represen-
tative character, and interpret the symbols with refer-
Inf." xix, 104. a " Purg." xx, 43-4.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 333
ence to his personal circumstances. By some the
panther is supposed to point to the gay world of
Florence, whilst others lay stress on the prevalence of
pride, avarice, and corruption in that city. No doubt
Dante thought of Florence more than any other place,
but he is no longer a mere local dicitore. He has
transcended that limit and become a poet, whose
horizon is not even bounded by the world of living
men, but stretches far away in the profoundest depths
of the universe and eternity. In the world of living
men, which is, after all, his main, though concealed
theme, he sees anarchy anarchy arising from the bad
example of the Church and her dereliction of duty on
the one hand, and tyranny and usurpation in the state
on the other.
O Covetousness, that mortals dost ingulf
Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power
Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves.
Thou, that it may not be a marvel to thee,
Think that on earth there is no one who governs ;
Whence goes astray the human family.
But there is hope.
Ere January be unwintered wholly
By the centesimal on earth neglected,
Shall these supernal circles roar so loud,
The tempest that has been so long awaited
Shall whirl the poops about where are the prows ;
So that the fleet shall run its course direct,
And the true fruit shall follow on the flower. 1
'Par." xxvii, 121-48.
334 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
In the sixteenth canto of the " Purgatorio " l Dante
says to Marco Lombardo:
The world forsooth is utterly deserted
By every virtue as thou tellest me,
And with iniquity is big and covered ;
But I beseech thee point me out the cause
That I may see it, and to others show it.
In his reply Marco affirms :
The laws exist, but who sets hands to them ?
No one ; because the shepherd who precedes
Can ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof;
Wherefore the people that perceives its guide
Strike only at the good for which it hankers,
Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.
Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidance
The cause is that has made the world depraved,
And not that nature is corrupt in you.
Rome that reformed the world accustomed was
Two suns to have, which one road and the other
Of God and of the world made manifest.
One has the other quenched, and to the crosier
The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it
That by main force one with the other go,
Because, being joined, one feareth not the other;
If thou believe not, think upon the grain,
For by its seed each herb is recognized.
The sword joined to the crosier represents the
unholy alliance between the Papacy and the Fleur-de-
lys, which is typified in the proem by the conjunction
of the lion and the wolf. The two suns, which make
manifest the two roads of religion and morality, are
those of the Church and the Empire, or, in other
1 11. 96-114.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 335
words, revelation and reason, which have a common
source in God, the planet which leads aright by every
road (" Inferno," i, 18).
The Empire being only a little less inviolable than
the Church, we comprehend why in the last canto of
the " Inferno," the three-headed " Emperor of the
Kingdom dolorous" is depicted crunching with his
teeth Judas Iscariot, and Brutus and Cassius. Their
guilt is not quite equal, and therefore Judas has the
greatest pain. His head is inside, while the others
hang head downwards. The assassins, refusing Caesar,
have an emperor of their own choosing, and their fate
is a warning to those who refuse Caesar's successor.
The sixth canto of the " Paradiso " contains a sketch
of the Roman Empire, symbolized as the eagle or
" bird of God," and the public or sacred standard, the
object being to show the madness of those who resist
or prostitute it. The terms in which the passage
concludes should be carefully marked:
And let not this new Charles e'er strike it down,
He and his Guelfs, but let him fear the talons
That from a nobler lion stripped the fell.
Already oftentimes the sons have wept
The father's crime, and let him not believe
That God will change His scutcheon for the lilies. 1
For the welfare of Christendom it is essential that
the forces of evil betokened by the three beasts should
be taken out of the way. As regards the wolf and her
ally, the means will be violent. A greyhound is to
1 "Par." vi. 106-11.
336 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
hunt her down. As his epistles prove, Dante at one
time thought that the Emperor Henry VII wa t s to be
the destined Messiah, who was to restore all things;
and in the thirty-third canto of the " Purgatorio " l we
meet with a prophecy which looks as if it might refer
to him.
Without an heir shall not forever be
The eagle that left his plumes upon the car,
Whence it became a monster, then a prey ;
For verily I see, and hence narrate it,
The stars already near to bring the time,
From every hindrance safe and every bar,
Within which a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five,
, One sent from God shall slay the thievish woman
And that same giant who is sinning with her.
This is what is known as the DVX prophecy, and
the arithmetical allusion to the coming avenger is
evidently copied from Revelation, xiii, 18: " Let him
that hath understanding count the number of the beast;
for it is a number of a man, and his number is six
hundred threescore and six." Most persons will be
content to find in the number the ingredients of the
Latin word dux (" leader "), but Dr. Moore, in a paper
of great learning, propounds the theory that Henry of
Luxemburg is intended, because in Hebrew the nu-
merical value of the letters composing the name
Arrico another form of Henry represents precisely
the total, 515. This is very ingenious, but for various
reasons does not seem probable. In several passages
of the poem Henry's failure is recognized, 2 and
amongst them may be reckoned that above quoted.
1 H- 37-45. 2 See "Par." xvii, 82; xxx, 133-38.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 337
The eagle is without an heir, because Henry is dead,
and his successor has not taken the needful steps to
constitute himself the lawful head of the Holy Roman
Empire. The Eagle's feathering of the car, i.e. the
Church, is evidently an allusion to the donation of
Constantine, and the heir of the Eagle must signify an
emperor. But it does not seem necessary to identify
the heir with the dux, who is to slay the usurpers,
though it is certainly natural to construe the passage
in this sense. The leader from whom so much was
expected may have been Can Grande della Scala.
Cane is the Italian for " dog," and the Scaligers bore
a mastiff on their coat-of-arms. There would therefore
be much propriety in making him the veltro, which
was really not a greyhound, but a heavily-built dog,
strong enough to kill bears and wild boars (see
Holbrook's " Dante and the Animal Kingdom," p. 1 18,
note}. It has been objected that the function assigned
to the " greyhound " is too wide for any local potentate,
but that may not have been Dante's opinion in the
case of this particular ruler, of whom he entertained
such extravagant hopes that he dared not commit
them to writing.
" With him shalt them see one who at his birth
Has by this star of strength been so impressed
That notable shall his achievements be.
Not yet the people are aware of him
Through his young age, since only nine years yet
Around about him have these wheels revolved.
But ere the Gascon cheat the noble Henry
Some sparkles of his virtue shall appear
In caring not for silver nor for toil.
Z
338 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
So recognized shall his magnificence
Become hereafter, that his enemies
Will not have power to keep mute tongues about it.
On him rely, and on his benefits ;
By him shall many people be transformed,
Changing condition rich and mendicant ;
And written in thy mind thou hence shalt bear
Of him, but shalt not say it" and things said he
Incredible to those who shall be present. '
In 1318 Can Grande was elected Captain of the
Ghibelline League, but there was nothing incredible
in that. What can Dante have meant? It seems to
us that he can have meant only this that Can Grande
was to restore the line of Roman Emperors in the
same way that Charlemagne did. He had come to
despair of the German Alberts, and so turned his gaze
to his own Italian countrymen, the stock from which
the original Roman Emperors had sprung.
The slaying of the lion and the wolf was to be
accomplished by the sword, by a great and salutary
revolution. The taming of the panther, or, in other
words, the moral and spiritual transformation of the
human race, demanded other and more deliberate
methods. In the concluding chapter of the " De
Monarchia" Dante affirms that "we attain to the
blessedness of this life through the teachings of philo-
sophy provided that we follow them, working in ac-
cordance with moral and intellectual virtues, whereas
we attain to the blessedness of life eternal through
spiritual teachings, which transcend human reason,
"Par." xvii, 76-93.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 339
provided that we follow them, working in accordance
with the theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity.
These conclusions and means (although the former
have been shown us by human logic, which has be-
come thoroughly known to us through philosophers;
and the latter by the Holy Ghost, who has revealed
to us the supernatural truth necessary for us through
the Prophets and Hagiographers, through the Son of
God, Jesus Christ and His disciples) human appetite
would neglect, unless men, like horses, wandering
through their own brutishness, were kept in the way
by bit and bridle. Wherefore man had need of two-
fold guidance in accordance with the twofold end;
namely, the Supreme Pontiff, who should conduct
mankind to life eternal after the light of revelation;
and the Emperor, who should guide mankind to
temporal happiness after the teachings of philosophy."
In the scheme of the " Commedia " Virgil repre-
sents moral philosophy. Dante points out in the first
book of the " De Monarchia " (ch. xi) that the Roman
poet sang in his "Bucolics":
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna ;
and he explains that "by the Virgin was intended
Justice, which was also called Astraea. The reign of
Saturn meant the best age, which was also termed the
golden. Justice is most possible under a monarch:
therefore, for the best regulation of the world, it is
requisite that there should be Monarchy or Empire."
Virgil was the laureate of Imperial Rome; he had
celebrated the feats of " pious Aeneas," and had re-
340 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
ported on the nether regions in the spirit of a philo-
sopher. Accordingly, he might be deemed eminently
qualified to bring in a new earth. He is competent to
guide Dante through Hell, and through Purgatory as
far as the Earthly Paradise, where, like Moses, after
conducting the Children of Israel through the wilder-
ness to the verge of the Promised Land, he must
needs resign his leadership.
The temporal fire and the eternal
Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come
Where of myself no farther I discern.
By intellect and art I here have brought thee. '
The teachings of philosophy have attained their end
in temporal happiness; for the attainment of eternal
happiness other guidance is necessary; namely, revela-
tion, which is symbolized by Beatrice. It is worthy of
remark that Virgil does not know Purgatory as he
knows Hell, obviously because he is a pagan, whose
residence is in Limbo. Moreover, Purgatory is an
ascent, not only to the Earthly, but to the Heavenly
Paradise, and, though in his dream Dante imagines it
is the Eagle that snatches him 2 upward " even to the
fire," in reality it is a blessed lady who bears him from
the valley of Princes to Purgatory, of which she shows
Virgil the gate.
There came a Lady and said " I am Lucia ;
Let me take this one up, who is asleep ;
So I will make his journey easier for him. "
Sordello and the other noble shapes
Remained; she took thee, and, as day grew bright,
Upward she came, and I upon her footsteps.
1 "Purg." xxvii, 127-30.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 341
She laid thee here; and first her beauteous eyes
That open entrance pointed out to me;
Then she and sleep together went away. 1
Lucia has been mentioned before in the poem in
Canto II of the " Inferno " and her action on this
occasion is in keeping with the part she has previously
played. Dante is her liege or votary, 2 probably because
he was born on her feast day, and therefore thought of
her as his guardian angel. But there is more in the
relation than that.
5. THE MYSTERY OF CONVERSION
Dante owes his salvation to the ministry of glorified
women. The first to take compassion on him is the
Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom St. Bernard says :
Not only thy benignity gives succour
To him who asketh it; but oftentimes
Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.
In thee compassion is, in thee is pity, etc. 3
The Blessed Virgin then symbolizes pity, or, in
theological phrase, prevenient grace. Lucia, as her
name implies, signifies enlightening grace. At Mary's
request she enlightens Beatrice regarding the desperate
plight of her lover, and, apparently of her own motion,
transports Dante from the Flowery Valley of court life
to the gate of penitence, as to the situation of which
she enlightens Virgil. It is to Beatrice, however, that
1 " Purg." ix, 55-63. 2 " Inf." ii, 98.
3 "Par." xxxiii, 16-18.
342 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Dante is indebted most, or most directly, and in Para-
dise his last words to her are :
O Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong,
And who for my salvation didst endure
In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet,
Of whatsoever things I have beheld,
As coming from thy power and thy goodness
I recognize the virtue and the grace.
Thou from a slave hast brought me unto freedom,
By all those ways, by all the expedients,
Whereby thou hadst the power of doing it.
Preserve towards me thy magnificence,
So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed,
Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body. 1
In Canto XXX of the " Purgatorio " 2 Beatrice states
that, among other expedients, she recalled Dante by
means of dreams, but he would not hearken, and then
it was that, as a last desperate resource, she visited Hell-
gate and, with abundance of tears, besought Virgil to
show her erring lover the "people of perdition" in
the manner described in Canto II of the " Inferno."
Beatrice is revelation, but there were certain aspects
of truth that she could not or would not reveal, more
particularly the horrors of hell, though she realized
that the spectacle was necessary for Dante as a medi-
cine as a preliminary to sound conversion. He was
to be saved as by fire. The conviction was to be
burnt into his mind that the heart of man is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked ; and in the
realms of Hell and Purgatory human spirits appear in
all their nakedness, without the trappings of rank and
office, which are apt to cover a multitude of sins.
1 "Par." xxxi, 79-90. 2 11.134-41.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 343
Virtue can be acquired by the aid of reason and
philosophy, and therefore Virgil serves as guide not
only through the circles of Hell, but through the un-
familiar circles of Purgatory. He, however, confesses
his limitations, and refers to Beatrice as an authority
on a more advanced and difficult branch of learning
than that of which he is the master.
Verily, in so deep a questioning
Do not decide, unless she tell it thee,
Who light 'twixt truth and intellect will be.
I know not if thou understand ; I speak
Of Beatrice . . . l
What reason seeth here,
Myself can tell thee ; beyond that await
For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith. 2
When at length Beatrice becomes Dante's guide,
she reveals the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven
with a profundity of wisdom which more than justifies
the compliment paid her in the "Vita Nuova," in
which Dante had spoken of her " noble understand-
ing." She fearlessly enters the domain of casuistry
reserved for her, and demonstrates the superiority of
Christian ethics to those crude ideas of religion and
duty, owned by Jew and Pagan alike, which sanctioned
human sacrifice for the accomplishment of an unwise
vow. Beatrice is inflexibly orthodox. In terms that
recall the passage of the " De Monarchia," which we
have cited as expressing sentiments fundamental to
the "Commedia," she insists on obedience to the
1 " Purg." vi, 43-7. - " Purg." xviii, 46-8.
344 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Church in spiritual matters, and the adequacy of
Holy Scripture and ecclesiastical authority as rules of
conduct, and admits no right of private judgement.
Christians, be ye more serious in your movements;
Be ye not like a feather at each wind,
And think not every water washes you.
Ye have the Old and the New Testament,
And the Pastor of the Church, who guideth you.
Let this suffice you unto your salvation.
If evil appetite cry aught else to you,
Be ye as men, and not as silly sheep,
So that the Jew among you may not mock you.
Be ye not as the lamb that doth abandon
Its mother's milk, and frolicsome and simple
Combats at its own pleasure with itself. 1
Dante states in the "De Monarchia" that philo-
sophy will lead to temporal happiness if its precepts
are followed by the practice of moral and intellectual
virtues, while eternal happiness demands the exercise
of the Christian graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity. In
the pageant of the Church Militant the cardinal vir-
tues, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance
dance on the left hand of the car, 2 and it will be noted
that they follow the measure of one of them who has
three eyes. This is Prudence, as looking at the past,
present, and future; she represents the intellectual
virtues. On the right hand of the car dance the three
evangelical virtues, Charity, Hope, and Faith. Charity
takes precedence in conformity with St. Paul's declara-
tion: "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these
three; but the greatest of these is charity" (i Cor-
1 "Par."v, 73-84. 2 "Purg." xxix, 121-32.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 345
inthians, xiii, 13). When Dante has been plunged in
the waters of Lethe, he is brought into the company
of the beautiful four, who say to him :
We here are nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars; 1
Ere Beatrice descended to the world,
We as her handmaids were appointed her.
We'll lead thee to her eyes; but for the pleasant
Light that within them is, shall sharpen thine
The three beyond, who more profoundly look.
Thereupon
Themselves revealing of the highest rank
In bearing, did the other three advance,
Singing to their angelic saraband.
"Turn, Beatrice, O turn thy holy eyes,"
Such was their song, " unto thy faithful one,
Who has to see thee ta'en so many steps.
In grace do us the grace that thou unveil
Thy face to him, so that he may discern
The second beauty which thou dost conceal." 2
The Cardinal Virtues, it will be observed, wait upon
Beatrice in the world ; they have to do with the moral
or Active Life of earth. The theological virtues, on
the other hand, are equal to Revelation, which bears the
same relation to them as does Prudence, the intellectual
virtue, to the moral virtues, save that Prudence pre-
cedes and Revelation is preceded by the virtues that
accompany them. Faith, Hope and Charity admit to the
higher, the Contemplative Life of Heaven, Beatrice's
" second beauty."
The distinction between the Active and the Con-
templative Life is allegorized in various ways. First in
1 Cf. "Purg."i,23.
- "Purg."xxxi, 103-11; 130-8.
346 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the contrast between Leah and Rachel. On the last
stairway of Purgatory, at the entrance of the Earthly
Paradise, Dante falls asleep and has a dream.
Youthful and beautiful in dreams methought
I saw a lady walking in a meadow,
Gathering flowers ; and singing she was saying :
' ' Know whosoever may my name demand
That I am Leah, and go moving round
My beauteous hands to make myself a garland.
To please me at the mirror here I deck me,
But never does my sister Rachel leave
Her looking-glass, and sitteth all day long.
To see her beauteous eyes as eager is she,
As I am to adorn me with my hands ;
Her, seeing, and me, doing satisfies." 1
In the Earthly Paradise Dante encounters a lady
named Matilda, presumably the Countess Matilda who
left her property to the Church; she also is gathering
flowers, not, however, for her personal adornment but
out of pure delight in the beauties of creation. She
cannot represent the Active Life, because that part has
been assigned to Leah. It is further to be observed
that the Terrestrial Paradise signifies the highest con-
dition attainable upon earth. There is no question of
work, in any disagreeable sense, for either Leah or
Matilda.
The Good Supreme, sole in itself delighting,
Created man good, and this goodly place
Gave him as hansel of eternal peace.
By his default short while he sojourned here ;
By his default to weeping and to (oil
He changed his innocent laughter and sweet play. 2
Purg." xxvii, 97-108. - " Purg." xxviii, 91-6.
THE "COMMEDIA" SYMBOLISM 347
Matilda typifies the Contemplative Life on earth, as
is shown by the hint which she herself supplies in the
single word delectasti taken from Psalm xcii, 4; and so
she supersedes Virgil, as Dante's guide, when he quits
the toils and sufferings of the seven cornices for the
rest and happiness of the holy table-land.
Beatrice, like Rachel and all the highest spirits,
resides in the Empyrean Heaven, where her employ-
ment is contemplation, but, being symbolical of Reve-
lation, in which character she descends to the Church
Militant, she is associated with the inner, just as Virgil
is associated with the outer, activities of the soul. Her
limit is defined by the object of her mission, which is
Dante's salvation, and having brought him to the
saintly host of the Church Triumphant, the White
Rose which is Christ's Bride, she withdraws from him
and resigns her office to St. Bernard. That "con-
templator " conducts him to the end of all desires
the Beatific Vision. Authorities are not agreed con-
cerning the precise date and duration of the mystic
pilgrimage, but the particulars which Dante furnishes
are consonant with a symbolical representation of his
conversion. He enters Hell on the evening of Good
Friday, reaches Purgatory at day-break on Holy Satur-
day, sleeps on the stairway of the Earthly Paradise,
and on Easter Day, having drunk of the water of
Eunoe, ascends to Heaven.
EPILOGUE
CHARACTERISTICS
i. THE MAN
T) OCCACCIO'S description of Dante that of the
JD outer man, his face and figure is sufficiently
arresting. "Our poet," he writes, "was of middle
height, and after attaining mature years, went some-
what stooping. His gait was grave and sedate.
Always clothed in most becoming garments, his dress
was suited to the ripeness of his years. His face was
long, his nose aquiline, his eyes rather large than
small, his jaw heavy, and his under lip prominent.
His complexion was dark, and his hair and beard
thick, black and crisp, and his countenance was
always sad and thoughtful. . . . His manners, whether
in public or at home, were wonderfully composed and
restrained ; and in all his ways he was more courteous
and civil than anyone else."
Existing portraits, for the most part, faithfully repro-
duce these traits. The most important are the fresco
painting in the Bargello at Florence by Giotto, which
represents the poet in his vita nuova ; and the mask in
the Uffizi of the same city, which shows us the Dante
of travail. Besides these there is the portrait by Andrea
Orcagna in the Capella Strozzi at the Church of Santa
352 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Maria Novella, that by Andrea del Castagno in the
Convent of Santa Apollonia, Florence, and the bronze
in the Naples Museum. Orcagna's portrait depicts
Dante in an attitude of prayer, and, singularly enough,
the under lip, instead of projecting, is puckered in.
But taking all five together, the effect is similar, and
they all agree in depicting Dante as shaven.
Now Dante certainly seems to have worn a beard,
as Beatrice makes it the subject of a reproach. 1 At
the period shown in Giotto's likeness, he may not
have done so, but the other portraits appear to be, in
this respect, inaccurate. The truth probably is that
his beard was removed after his death to enable the
mask to be taken. Another point is worthy of a
passing note. Boccaccio says that Dante's hair and
beard were dark. We should draw a different con-
clusion from the poet's own words in the first Eclogue
(1. 44), where he speaks of his locks as originally
auburn, though then gray. The fashion of the coun-
tenance as a suggestion of character and temperament
is most satisfying. Mr. Dirck sums up its expression
in one epithet Dantesque, which conveys a world of
meaning to the initiated. For those less able to decipher
its significance, Carlyle subjects the portrait of the
prematurely old and broken "hero" to an eloquent
analysis. "Looking at it," he says, "you cannot help
inclining to think it genuine. A most touching face,
perhaps of all faces that I know the most so. Lonely
there, painted as on vacancy, with the simple laurel
wound round it; the deathless sorrow and pain, the
1 " Purg." xxxi, 62, 74.
CHARACTERISTICS 353
known victory which is also deathless, significant of
the whole history of Dante! I think it is the mourn-
fulest face that ever was painted from reality; an alto-
gether tragic, heart-affecting face. There is in it, as
foundation of it, the softness, tenderness, gentle affec-
tion as of a child; but all this as if congealed into
sharp contradiction, into abnegation, isolation, proud,
hopeless pain. A soft ethereal soul looking out so
stern, implacable, grim-trenchant, as if from imprison-
ment of thick-ribbed ice! Withal it is a silent pain
too, a silent scornful one; the lip is curled in a kind
of godlike disdain of the thing that is eating out his
heart as if it were withal a mean insignificant thing,
as if he whom it had power to torture were greater
than it. The face of one wholly in protest and life-
long unsurrendering struggle against the world. Affec-
tion all converted into indignation, slow, equable, silent,
like that of a god " !
But Dante did not appear like a god to his Italian
countrymen. In the " Convivio " he makes no secret
of the fact that wherever he showed himself in person,
his reputation suffered. The reason lay in his pecu-
niary straits. Boccaccio, though he survived to deify
the poet, may have remembered him certainly, there
were still alive those who had so marked him as a
poverty-stricken wanderer, when that eagle face, in
which the pride of genius, the irony of disappoint-
ment, and the stubbornness of invincible resolution,
were blended in masculine strength and sternness,
failed to affect observers distracted by its accessories
the sordid raiment, the minished stature, the frail
A A
354 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
and feeble frame. Too often, as Dante complains,
accidents obscure essence, and the livery of adversity
was apt to libel not only the intellectual grandeur of
the man, but the lineaments of its index. It would
indeed be passing strange, if a character like that of
Dante, shining so clear and distinct in his writings,
left no trace on his physiognomy, for in most per-
sons the features preserve the reflection of emotions,
habits, and circumstances. Which brings us to a
notable quality of the poet that cannot be termed a
virtue, and may be justly criticised as a fault. We
allude to his pride. Dante has nothing of the large
and genial humanity of Shakespeare. With a candour
incapable of concealment in matters of general import,
he proclaims that the mass of men are no better than
children, are shallow and superficial. The worst are
nothing but brute beasts, and the worst are not few.
He does not stickle to denounce whole communities
as degraded to that abject level, and the Tuscans, as
whom he knows best, incur his keenest censure. So
horrible are his recollections of the province that, even
in Hell fresh to its terrors he shrinks from naming
the Arno, and the people whose lands it laves. For
them also he has no proper names. He once spoke of
them as Casentines, Aretines, Florentines, and Pisans :
now they are swine, curs, wolves, and foxes!
The women of Florence are morally worthless, and
only for one does Dante find a kind word Nella, the
" little widow " of his ancient acquaintance, Forese
Donati. For the mental capacity of the sex his con-
tempt is supreme. Does he refer to matters compre-
CHARACTERISTICS 355
hensible to the meanest intelligence? He shows their
simplicity by adding, " as is manifest even to women."
And when he will be thorough and emphatic, he has
recourse to the Latin diminutive mulierculae? and
brackets women with children as creatures of im-
perfect and undeveloped understanding. It is perhaps
significant that he bans their prattle from his tragic
style, but here we must remember that the " De
Vulgari Eloquentia" is a severely practical treatise,
and Dante, in his jealous care for purity of diction,
was bound to be as severe on the boudoir as on the
nursery and the street. This general disdain is, of
course, consistent with profound veneration for noble
men and for noble women for St. Francis and the
Emperor Henry, for Beatrice and Piccarda, and the
" great Constance." But we are dealing now with his
attitude towards common humanity, and this, when it
was not cold and indifferent, was scornful, censorious,
and proud. Dante seems to have betrayed his senti-
ments by an habitual reserve towards his intellectual
inferiors. " This Dante," says Villani, " from his
knowledge was somewhat presumptuous, harsh and
disdainful, like an ungracious philosopher; he scarcely
deigned to converse with laymen." Boccaccio, on the
other hand, depicts the poet as a charming com-
panion; he will have us think of him as a perfect
gentleman. Which of these accounts is correct? It is
probable that there is in both some measure of truth
and exaggeration. Guelf though he was, we cannot
accuse Villani of prejudice, and as Boccaccio's bio-
1 Epistle x, 10.
356 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
graphy is confessedly a panegyric, we may be forgiven
for doubting that Dante was invariably bland, that he
never lost his temper. We hazard the conjecture that
he appeared to his chosen associates in another light
than to his enemies and strangers. It must have been
so; it is the case with all.
Dante was an aristocrat. The class of readers de-
siderated for the " Convivio," and doubtless for the
" Commedia " as well, was socially of high rank
princes, barons, cavaliers, and other gentlefolk. His
insistence on nobility as a moral quality must not be
taken as evidence of a democratic tendency; it was
dictated by a philosophic motive, which, to say the
least, was not inimical to hereditary distinction. A
degenerate nobleman was as displeasing to him as
bassa gente, and more, because such an one has so
many incentives to fine conduct that the child of the
gutter must necessarily lack. So Dante, far from
sparing, flings taunt after taunt at nobles noble only
in name it matters not whether they be great German
potentates too craven or remiss to possess themselves
of the garden of the empire or little Florentine
cavaliers who waste their substance in riotous living.
Dante's aristocratic leanings are shown in his defini-
tion of literary Italian as aulic and curial. A court is
to him a centre of culture and refinement. It is in
such, not in the universities, blindly attached to
Latin, that the Sweet New Style is most at home and
will win the fairest welcome. Born a Guelf, by a law
of his nature Dante gravitated to Ghibellinism, and
when, in just wrath, he separated himself from the
CHARACTERISTICS 357
junta of self-seeking conspirators, he adhered to the
principle that served them as a pretext and a war-cry.
He realized that, in practice, Ghibellinism implied
merely the substitution of oligarchy for popular govern-
ment, and so, inevitably, he became " a party by him-
self," a pure and undefined Imperialist, in whose eyes
the restoration of the Empire to its pristine glory and
power was the paramount question overshadowing and
comprehending all others. Of all his kindred, Caccia-
guida alone occupies a conspicuous and honoured
place in the " Commedia," and naturally so, since the
memory of the valiant old knight, who had perished
in the service of faith and Empire, was to Dante
a priceless possession, especially as the family of
Alighieri had been absorbed into the commune of
Florence and its more ignoble faction. Hence he
exclaims :
O thou, our poor nobility of blood,
If thou dost make the people glory in thee,
Down here where our affection languishes,
A marvellous thing it ne'er can be to me,
For there where appetite is not perverted,
I say in Heaven, of thee I made my boast !
Truly thou art a cloak that quickly shortens,
So that unless we piece thee day by day
Time goeth round about thee with his shears ! *
2. THE ARTIST
Dante possessed two qualifications essential to a
poet the hearing ear and the seeing eye. He may or
may not have been an executant musician, but, be-
1 " Par." xvi, 1-9.
358 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
yond all question, he had a delicate sense, and, indeed,
an uncontrollable sympathy for the magic of tone.
When Casella sings, he listens rapt, and, as he writes,
the well interpreted air still haunts him. Coleridge
said in his later days that he could compose as good
verse as ever if he could be " within the ad libitum
hearing of good music " ; and so strait is the affinity
betwixt cadence and rhythm, that an accomplished
versifier without an ear for music even if some
caprice of nature has denied the power to demonstrate
it is inconceivable. This would have been axiom-
atic to Dante, who had studied the mutual relations
of the arts, and was aware that the principles of versi-
fication, as transmitted by his Troubadour prede-
cessors, were based on those of music. True, verse
might exist apart from melody, but originally it had
been created for it, as woman for man. By verse we
mean, of course, not poetry, but poetical form. A
composition like the " Commedia," by reason of its
formidable bulk, might seem more fit for reading or
recitation than chanting, but the traditions of medi-
aeval minstrelsy took no account of the length of a
poem, the delivery of which might, in fact, be lubri-
cated by vocal or instrumental variations; and the
Sacred Poem, with its alternate rhyming, which may be
compared to the surge and recess of the waves, seems
attempered to some cosmic plain song, of which the
stately rhythm is a perpetual echo.
In the curriculum of the schools poetry was not an
art in itself it was a branch of rhetoric; and Dante
was a master of dramatic and declamatory effect. We
CHARACTERISTICS 359
may adduce as an example his use of iteration as a
means of impressing his audience. There is some-
thing incomparably weird in the commencement of
Canto III of the "Inferno" a quality much en-
hanced by the fact that the inscription over Hell-gate
comes unannounced by any previous intimation of its
reference. For, be it observed, Dante up to that point
has not stated he has hardly so much as hinted
that he is bound for the nether regions. Thus the
opening of the canto has a calculated abruptness, and
the triple formula falls on the ear with the sudden
clangour of a funeral bell. But neither the inscription
nor the threeness ends with the first significant sen-
tence. The notice is expanded into a nicely adjusted
syllogism, of which 11. 1-3 constitute the major pre-
miss, 11. 4-8 the minor, and with wonderful art the
single 1. 9 the dooming conclusion. Thus does Dante
impress dialectic into the service of rhetoric, and both
into the service of poetry.
An instance of ingemination nearly as remarkable
occurs in Canto XII of the " Purgatorio." There four
terzines, beginning with the words " I saw," are suc-
ceeded by four beginning with the interjection " O,"
and these again by four beginning with the word
" Displayed." The final terzine of the passage which
is descriptive of sculptures, concerning which Dante
has to say :
De.id seemed the dead, the living seemed alive;
Better than I saw not who saw the truth,
All that I trod upon while bowed I went l
1 11. 67-9-
360 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
the final terzine resumes the first commencement
" I saw "; the second line of it begins with " O," and
the third with " Displayed," the principle of triplicity
being applied to the commencements of the lines in a
manner reminiscent of the preceding three sets of
four terzines. This may smack of artificiality, but
Dante did not abuse or pervert his craft. He had
an instinctive sense of the appropriate artifice, as of
the unavoidable word, the predestined metre; and
that sense was his master. The rhetorical force of
this ecstatic appreciation, its cumulative eloquence,
its valedictory close, must be realized by all who are
not too dull to be interested in the nuances of literary
art. Were we upon a musical theme proper, we should
say that Dante works up a crescendo, maintains a
strenuous fortissimo, and concludes with a diminu-
endo.
Dante, then, undoubtedly had the hearing ear, but
he had not less certainly the seeing eye. In reality he
sees vastly more than reaches the surface of the poem,
which is notable, amongst other things, for its allusive-
ness. From beginning to end Dante touches upon
persons and events, some historical, others well known
at the time that would since have passed into oblivion
but for the industry of commentators to whom it has
been a sacred duty to elucidate every reference. This
sort of parola oscura, this assumption of knowledge
or disregard of ignorance concerning facts, with all or
most of which only a few could have been conversant
and, with the effluxion of time, the number must
have gone on diminishing imparts to the poetry a
CHARACTERISTICS 361
lofty, solemn, oracular effect, and creates an impres-
sion of illimitable resource. Dante will not cumber
himself with details that can be gleaned from books
or learned from the older people; he will not make
more of ordinary human beings than their virtues or
vices deserve. When an important personage appears
on the scene, or the humour seizes, he is more liberal,
but even then he takes a good deal for granted. It is
his cue not to /// stories, but to moralize them. Hence
the " Commedia " is extremely tiresome to those who
will not condescend to a regular study of the work.
Voltaire is impatient, Alphonse de Lamartine re-
bellious, chiefly, if not entirely, because the "Com-
media " makes such immense demands on the atten-
tion, because it postulates special and extensive
erudition. Lamartine, refusing to it the title of a vast
and immortal epic poem, calls it "the Florentine
gazette of posterity."
But if superfluity of riches, combined with a just
conception of his function not to mention material
limits induces him to hint, to outline, to practise a
poetical shorthand, Dante can be definite and pic-
torial, where those qualities seem needed; and though
men and women flit across his stage, and we are told
very little about them, the backgrounds of Hell and
Purgatory, and the peculiarities of monsters and
penalties, have not a shadow of vagueness. The
phrase " I saw," a sort of keynote, occurs again and
again, and Dante is not content with himself seeing;
he takes care that his readers also shall see, as far as
their faculties and finite human language permit. The
362 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
"Com media" is not only a vision, but a vision of
extraordinary vividness. In the thirty-first canto of
the " Paradiso " Dante compares himself to a pilgrim
who delighteth him ,
In gazing round the temple of his vow,
And hopes some day to retell how it was ; '
and the exactness with which everything cognizable
in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise is recorded suggests
the intelligent, persevering curiosity of a traveller in
a strange land resolved to endure all hardships, to
spare no effort, so he may cram his note-books with a
harvest of information for his grateful compatriots.
In his " Modern Painters " Ruskin contrasts Dante
with Milton in this particular, awarding the palm to
the former. He says:
" Milton's effort in all that he tells us of his In-
ferno is to make it indefinite; Dante's to make it
definite. Both indeed describe it as entered through
gates; but within the gate, all is wild and fenceless
with Milton, having indeed its four rivers the last
vestige of the mediaeval tradition but rivers which
flow through a waste of mountain and moorland, and
by ' many a frozen, many a fiery alp.' But Dante's
Inferno is accurately separated in circles drawn with
well-pointed compasses; mapped and properly sur-
veyed in every direction, trenched in a thoroughly
good style of engineering from depth to depth, and
divided in the ' accurate middle ' (drizzo mezzo) of its
deepest abyss into a concentric series of ten moats
1 II. 43-5-
CHARACTERISTICS 363
and embankments. . . . Now whether this be what we
moderns call ' good taste ' or not, I do not mean just
now to enquire Dante having nothing to do with
taste, but with the facts of what he had seen ; only so
far as the imaginative faculty of the two poets is con-
cerned, note that Milton's vagueness is not the sign
of imagination, but of its absence, so far as it is sig-
nificative in the matter. For it does not follow because
Milton did not map out his Inferno as Dante did that
he could not have done so if he had chosen; only it
was the easier and less imaginative process to leave it
vague than to define it. Imagination is always the
seeing and asserting faculty; that which obscures or
conceals may be judgment or feeling, but not inven-
tion. The invention, whether good or bad, is in the
accurate engineering, not in the fog and uncertainty."
Hell is a prison-fortress, the mightiest ever con-
structed, and it is perhaps worthy of remark that the
" war prison " on Dartmoor, built for the reception of
French and American captives, was planned on similar
lines to Dante's Inferno that is, in concentric circles,
as affording the greatest security against escape.
If, in his first cantica, Dante shows himself a com-
petent engineer, in his " Purgatorio " he discovers a
taste for architecture and the plastic arts. For ram-
parts there are cdrnices, and Dante is enthralled with
the wondrousness of the "visible language," the di-
vinely-wrought imagery impressed on wall and pave-
ment. He is seeing, always seeing, and the habit of
observation manifested in the eternal kingdoms he
had acquired on earth, having doubtless spent long
364 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
hours of contemplation before masterpieces of human
cunning in his travels from court to court, from city
to city. The Valley of Princes, and, still more, the
Earthly Paradise, invite him to try his skill in land-
scape, to make Edens; and, responding to the call,
he paints scenes of incomparable peace and beauty.
At no point of his journey is he otherwise than de-
liberate, but he seems exceptionally inclined to dally
amid the bowers of the Earthly Paradise, which he
traverses with lingering pace that he may drink in all
its ravishment.
I left the bank
Taking the level champaign slowly, slowly,
Over the soil that everywhere breathes fragrance. 1
As he listens to the burden of the wind-kiss'd leaves
accompanying the strains of the jubilant song-birds,
his thoughts recur to the pine forest on the shore of
Chiassi with its yEolian melody. At length he reaches
a stream, whose " brown, brown current " flows be-
neath a shade perpetual, that neither sun nor moon
can penetrate with its ray. It is the River Lethe, and
the shade symbolizes the darkness of forgetfulness.
It is a real stream, however, for Dante notes that
the little waves
Bent down the grass that on its margin sprang. 2
In depicting Heaven Dante has a far more difficult
task, and he knows it. St. Paul had written : " Eye
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into
the heart of man the things which God hath prepared
1 "Purg." xxviii, 4-6. '" " Purg." xxviii, 26-7.
CHARACTERISTICS 365
for them that love him, but God hath revealed them
to us by his Spirit." 1 This text, though relating
apparently to the moral rather than the essential
Heaven, seems to have been constantly present to
Dante's mind. Ever and anon he frankly confesses
his inability to cope with the ineffable. The proem
of the " Paradise," in which he concedes not so much
his personal inadequacy, but the inadequacy of all
human and angelic agency, is the precursor of a
number of passages repeating this sentiment. For
example :
Representing Paradise,
The sacred poem must perforce leap over,
Even as a man who finds his way cut off;
And whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,
And of the mortal shoulder laden with it,
Should blame it not, if under this it tremble.
It is no passage for a little boat
This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,
Nor for a pilot that would spare himself. 2
Again:
I, though I call on genius, art, and practice,
Cannot so tell that it could be imagined:
Believe one can, and let him long to see it. 3
And, finally:
My sight, becoming purified,
Was entering more and more into the ray
Of the High Light, which of itself is true.
From that time forward what I saw was greater
Than our discourse, that to such vision yields,
And yields the memory unto such excess.
2 Cor. ii, 9. 2 "Par." xxiii, 61-9.
3 " Par. "x, 43-5.
366 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Even as he who seeth in a dream,
And after dreaming the imprinted passion
Remains, and to his mind the rest returns not,
Even such am I, for almost utterly
Ceases my vision, and distilleth yet
Within my heart the sweetness born of it ;
Even thus the snow is in the sun unsealed,
Even thus upon the wind in the light leaves
Were the soothsayings of the Sibyl lost. 1
Dante therefore elects to picture states rather than
scenes of blessedness, a point brought out with some
emphasis in the fourth canto of the " Paradiso " (11. 27-
39); and, as the lower heavens typify diverse con-
ditions of happiness, Dante varies the atmosphere
according to distinctions already expressed in the
" Convivio." The transitions from one to the other
are indicated mainly in this way, but there is nothing
in the " Paradiso " to equal in picturesque description
the beauties of the sunrise in the second canto of the
" Purgatorio." Dante appears to have conceived of the
stars as entirely different from the earth lustrous
spheres affording foothold for more lustrous spirits.
When he reaches the Primum Mobile, and then the
Empyrean, he has left behind him the last phases of
matter, and the symbolism, much of it borrowed from
the Apocalypse, can no longer be confounded with
things of sense. All that he can tell us of Heaven is
that it is a world of palpitating light flooded with
unimaginable harmony; and, if he fails where failure
is inevitable and conscious, he, at any rate, succeeds
1 " Par." xxxiii, 52-65.
CHARACTERISTICS 367
in conveying a sense of his own almost unendurable
bliss, and the pure and elevated joys of the elect.
In the case of earthly objects Dante is extra-
ordinarily accurate, especially when it is considered
that he lived in an age when zoology and kindred
sciences were neglected, and that, in certain instances,
he was dependent on the reports of travellers and
statements of ancient authors. These he could neither
corroborate nor disprove, and therefore he was led
astray, e.g. with regard to fiery adders. On the whole,
however, Dante was as correct as might be anticipated
from his singular and invariable fidelity to nature,
though he had, at least, one superior. " As a natural-
ist," says Mr. Holbrook, "Frederick II surpassed
Albert the German and Dante. On the other hand,
Dante, as an artist, not only excels in the main all
his contemporaries and forerunners, but outshines the
best writers of antiquity. . . . What now is Dante's
artistic attitude towards the lower animals? With a
few exceptions their existence interests him only in so
far as it furnishes him imagery to make us compre-
hend the actions of men, of devils, or of angels, or in so
far as the animals furnish lessons for the guidance of
man. He neither loves nor portrays them wholly for
their own sake. Almost six centuries had passed
when they found their first great literary interpreter in
Leconte de Lisle. Yet Dante is the most accurate
artistic observer of his time. His will to be right is
obvious even in the smallest things, and see how he
can blend science and poetry to make them one! " '
1 "Dante and the Animal Kingdom," p. 8.
368 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
A great poet must possess not only a hearing ear
and a seeing eye, but an understanding mind. Dante
is the apostle of intellect. What Milman says of
Dante's master, St. Thomas Aquinas, is equally applic-
able to Aquinas' greater pupil that, with him, the
perfection of man is the perfection of his intellect.
The epithet that most befits him is a term he is
fond of using; that epithet is "subtle." This explains
his fine workmanship, his aptness for detail, but we
were not thinking of that. From his earliest days
he delighted in tracing out mysteries to their last
analysis, and setting similar problems for others.
He loved to be profound, to plumb the depths
of being. " All genius," says Coleridge, " is meta-
physical, because the ultimate end of genius is ideal,
however it may be actualized by incidental and acci-
dental circumstances." That is why Dante's heaven is
intellectual too much so for the majority of his
readers, less eager than himself to know even as they
are known.
Dante's science is largely false, and he made no
important contribution to astronomy, or any of the
abstruser branches of knowledge, but he thoroughly
assimilated the systems of the great teachers, both
ancient and modern, and conquered the technique of
various arts, especially such as bore upon his own
vocation as poet. Nor was it only the contents of
books or the maxims of professors that rooted them-
selves in his memory and blossomed luxuriantly in his
writings. He was deeply versed in the study of man-
man in the abstract, and in the infinite diversities of
CHARACTERISTICS 369
his nature; and thus of the "Commedia" he could
say, as Juvenal did of his satires:
Quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago libelli est.
Doubtless also he would have continued the quota-
tion, launching it at his own generation:
Et quando uberior vitiorum copia? Quando
Major avaritiae patuit sinus? '
Mr. Holbrook's remark as to the perfect way in which
Dante reconciles science and poetry conducts to the in-
quiry, What is poetry? A hearing ear, a seeing eye, and
an understanding mind, though they are necessary con-
ditions for the achievement of a work on the lines of
the " Commedia," do not make a poet. A sense of
melody, imagination, learning, insight these are ex-
cellent gifts, but something is required to set them in
motion, to maintain them in vital efficiency, to weld or
fuse them into harmonious expression, and that some-
thing is feeling. Dante, it will be said, was ambitious ;
he yearned for posthumous fame as compensation for
all the world had denied him. There was an incentive.
We grant it, but ambition is feeling it may be called
a selfish emotion. Dante, however, had social emo-
tions, love and hate, admiration and contempt, fear
and fortitude, and had them in no common measure.
Whatever sentiment possessed him asserted itself
with all the strength of his passionate nature, and
carried him to the bound. Yet his will was still
1 "Sat."i, 85-8.
370 HANDBOOK TO DANTE
stronger, enabling him to recall his falcons of feeling,
and compelling them to submit to the dictates of
reason. Thus wrath becomes righteous indignation,
and sensual love the holiest of longings; and the emo-
tions are as intense in their last phase as in their first.
Dante's lyrical poems are very unlike his "Corn-
media " ; they lack the objectivity of that most catholic
of great poems; their interest is esoteric, and their
language a cabala. But they bear witness to a furnace
of emotional strength, and Dante needed it all to
support a load of erudition which, in lesser men,
would have paralysed originality, and smothered the
creative faculty under an incubus of dead matter.
But so great was Dante's intellectual force that he
grew with each accretion of learning, and new facts
or principles having been digested and absorbed into
his spiritual organism, he was able to formulate ideas
and sentiments in a thousand ways that would not
have been open to a less richly cultivated understand-
ing. The order, everywhere apparent in his writings,
reflects the economy of his matchless mind, in which
there was room for everything, and everything had its
place; and yet he did not shrivel into a soulless
pedant. He exalted scholarship; he transfigured it
into an oriflamme of light and beauty. A scribe in-
structed unto the kingdom of heaven, he brought
forth out of his treasure things new and old. The
adjustment, the harmony of his powers verges on the
superhuman. Poetry has been defined as madness,
but Dante, when most inspired, most bizarre, is in-
variably wise, invariably sane. He was deficient in
CHARACTERISTICS 371
the somewhat banal, though saving, quality of humour;
otherwise he must have realized the incongruity of his
filial interview with Brunette Latini, whom he pillories
as a sodomite, enduring shameful and figurative tor-
ment. Dante's nearest approach to humour is to be
found perhaps in his caricatures of devildom, but he
does not mean us to laugh, to be amused. He desires
to excite horror and loathing, and antipathy for what
is ugly and deformed. Milton concedes some con-
siderable relics of dignity and nobility to his fiends;
not so Dante, and Ruskin holds Dante to be right.
" I believe," he says, " that there is no test of great-
ness in periods, nations, or men, more sure than the
development among them, or in them, of a noble
grotesque; and no test of comparative smallness or
limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the
absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of
understanding it. I think that the central man of all
the world, as representing in perfect balance the
imaginative, moral, and intellectual faculties, all at
their highest, is Dante; and in him the grotesque
reaches at once the most distinct and the most noble
development to which it was ever brought in the
human mind." L
1 "Stones of Venice," ii, 207 (1881 ed.).
INDEX
ACHERON, 297.
Adam, 88, 134.
Adolphus, Emperor, 123, 234.
Aeneas, 279.
"Aeneid," 279, 289, 290, 296.
Africa, 124, 138.
Aimeric de Belenoi, 113.
Aimeric de Pegulhan, 113.
Alagia, 38.
Alberigo, Frate, 314.
Albert, Emperor, 20, 123, 234.
Albertus Magnus, 140, 247,
248, 367.
Albumazar, 247, 248.
Alcimus, 52.
Aldighiero, 6, 7, 230.
Alessandro da Romena, Count,
24, 34, 36, 47-
Alexander the Great, 35, 124,
125, 318.
Alfraganus, 185, 248, 256, 290,
297.
Algazel, 247.
Amadi, 229.
Amidei, The, 15.
Andrea del Castagno, 352.
Angels, 253-5.
" Anonimo Florentine," 25, 226.
Antaeus, 299, 313.
Antichthon, 252.
Antiochus, 52.
Apocalypse, 279, 366.
Aretines, The, 354.
, Arezzo, 24, 47, 94.
! Aristotle, 70, 246, 251, 252,
253, 289, 313, 321.
i Arnaut, Daniel, 74, 75,98, 102,
113-
Arno, River, 95.
Arrivabene, 72.
" Ars Poetica," 59.
Arthur, King, 91.
Asia, 138, 304.
Assyria, 133.
Atlas, Mt., 124.
Augustine, St., 135, 237,
246.
Augustus, Emperor, 131, 134.
Averroes, 247.
Avicenna, 247.
Avignon, 49, 329, 332.
Babel, Tower of, 88, 125.
Babylon, 125, 133.
Bacon, 13, 177.
Balbo, 5, 7, 27.
Barbi, Professor, 217.
Bargello, The, 351.
Bartoli, 175, 179, 180, 200,
208.
37*
INDEX
Beatrice, n, 12, 13, 50, 147,
J 54, 157-71, 188, 192, 193,
194-207, 225, 227, 228, 238,
343, 345, 347, 355-
Bellincione, 6.
Bembo, Bernardo, 28.
Benedict IX, Pope, 35.
Benvenuto da Imola, 14.
Bernard, St., 248, 289, 347.
Bertran de Born, 74, 98, 113.
Bianchi and Neri, 18, 19, 20,
21, 55-
Bischioni, 232.
Boccaccio, 5, 7, 16, 25, 30, 55,
86, 168, 171, 351, 353.
Boccaccio Adimari, 22.
Boethius, 288.
Bologna, 10, 24, 61, 63, 93,
95-
Bonaventure, St., 289.
Boniface, Pope, 19, 20, 22.
Boy-bishop, 86.
Brescia, Siege of, 27, 29, 49.
Brunetto Latini, 8, 9, n, 7 V ,
94, 114, 141, 289, 371.
Bruni, 24, 30, 31, 34, 36, 86.
Brutus, 319, 335.
Buonagiunta da Lucca, 77' 7^>'
94, 114, 225.
Buonconte, 25.
Buonconvento, 27.
Buondelmonti, 15.
Buti, 26.
Byron, 165.
Cacciaguida, 5, 6, 7, 357.
Caesar, 335.
Caetano di Sermoneta, 303.
Cairo, Old, 125.
373
Camicion de' Pazzi, 23, 326.
Campaldino, Battle of, 14.
Can Grande della Scala, 27, 56,
57, 62, 237, 277, 278, 280,
337-8.
Cancellieri, The, 18.
Cante de' Gabrielli, 21, 53.
Caorsines, 50.
Capella Strozzi, The, 35 1 .
Capet, Hugh, 330.
Caprona, Siege of, 14.
Carducci, 149, 157.
Carlino de' Pazzi, 23.
Carlyle, 352.
Carpentras, 51.
Casella, 13, 75, 76, 358.
Casentines, The, 354.
Casentino, The, 24.
Cassini, 157.
Cassius, 335.
Castello della Pieve, The, 19.
Cato, 318.
Cavalcanti, Cavalcante, 13.
Cavalcanti, Guido, 12, 78, 94,
114, 153, 154, 155, 161, 162,
175, 184, 207, 264.
Cecco d'Ascoli, 30.
Cerberus, 325.
Cerchi, The, 18.
Charlemagne, 137, 338.
Charles of Valois, 233.
Charles II of Naples, 28.
Charles the Cripple, 17.
Chaytor, Mr., 106, 280.
Chiassi, 364.
Ciacco, 325.
Cialuffi, Lapa di, 19.
Cicero, 8, 9, 86, 125, 246, 247,
248, 251.
374
HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Cino Sinibuldi, of Pistoia, 13,
32, 38, 78, 81, 92, 94, 98,
114, 175, 197, 200, 209, 211.
Clement, Pope, 28, 43, 49, 50,
51, 53, 272.
Clytie, 44, 198.
Cocytus, 297.
"Codex Ashburnham," 169;
" Laurentian," 197; " Ric-
cardian," 197.
Coleridge, 174, 358, 368.
Constance, 355.
Council of Salzburg, 86.
Council of the Capitudini, 17; I
of the Hundred Men, 17; of j
the Podesta, 17.
Countess G. ofBattifolle, 33, 47. j
Crete, 298, 327.
Cumae, 295, 296, 297.
Cunizza, 75.
Curio, 48.
D'Ancona, 157.
Daniel, 135.
Dante, passim.
Dante, Antonia, daughter of, 16. '
Beatrice, daughter of, 16. j
Jacopo, son of, 1 6, 64.
Pietro, son of, 16, 26, 169. |
Dante of Maiano, 77, 210.
Davus, 71.
"DeOfficiis," 317.
Del Lungo, 14, 116, 230.
Delia Scala, Bartolommeo, 24.
Demetrius, 152.
Dicitori, 10, 73, 76, 81.
Dictys and Dares, 241.
Dino Compagni, 173.
Dino Frescobaldi, 175.
Dionysius the Areopagite, 289.
Dirck, Mr. 16.
Dolce stil nuovo, 8l, 82.
Donati, Corso, 20, 21, 22, 41,
221, 230.
Donati, P'orese, 6, n, 220, 229-
231, 354-
Donati, Gemma, 16, 171, 172.
Donati, Manetto, 16.
Donna Bella, 9.
Dukes of Bavaria, 15.
Earthly Paradise, The, 234, 304,
328-9, 364.
Egypt, 125, 132.
Elisei, 7.
Eliseo, 6.
Embassies, 17.
Emerson, 3.
Ennius, 125.
" Ensenhamen, " 75, 219.
Epicureans, 310.
Eunoe, River, 304.
Eve, 88.
Fabbro, Messer, 24.
Fabricii, 222.
Fabruzzo, 114.
Farinata, 321.
Federn, Herr, 7 (note), n, 169.
Ferrara, 6.
Fiducio de' Milotti, 61.
Flavio Biondi, 25, 90.
Florence, 5, 10, n, 12, 15, 16,
17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 27, 31,
48, 93-4, 164, 184, 202, 222,
287, 34, 333, 353-
Florentines, 9, 12, 14, 18, 46,
212-3.
INDEX
375
Folquet de Marseille, 74.
Forll, 25, 28.
Francesca da Rimini, 28.
Francis, St., 355.
Frangipani, The, 7.
Frate Ilario, Letter of, 40, 71,
273-
Fraticelli, 198.
Frederick Barbarossa, 46.
Frederick II, Emperor, 7, 46,
234, 261, 267.
Frederick of Aragon, 27, 46,
233-
Friar B., 35.
Furies, The, 324.
Gades, 290, 291, 294.
Galilee, 249, 250.
Gallo d'Agnelo, 114.
Ganges, 293, 294.
Gardner, Mr., 29, 32, 50, 54,
58, 307 (note].
Gascons, 50.
Gaspary, 26, 62, 85, 173.
Gentucca, 225.
Geraut de Borneuil, 74, 98.
Germany, 96.
Geryon, 298, 299, 313.
Gherardo da Camino, 324.
Gianni, Lapo, 13, 78, 94, 175
208, 220.
Giano della Bella, 16-7.
Giotto, 14, 351-2.
Giovanna, 167, 207, 214-5.
Gladstone, 26.
Gorgon, 324.
Gotto of Mantua, 104, 114.
GuelfsandGhibellines,i5,U7 .
356-7.
Guido da Montefeltro, 317.
Guido delle Colonne, 95, 1 14.
Guido di Battifolle, 54.
Guido Ghisilieri, 22.
Guido Guinicelli, 79, 80, 81, 95,
114, 160, 218, 267.
Guido Novello, 28, 31, 61.
Guido Salvatico, 147.
Guilds, 17.
Guittone of Arezzo, 30, 77, 78,
81, 94, 99, 114, 210, 275.
Hadrian, Pope, 137.
Hazlitt, 174.
Heber, 88.
Hebrew, 88, 241.
Henry II, Emperor, 26, 27, 29,
4i-3 45. 49, 52, 121, 123,
273, 336-7, 355-
Hohenstaufen, House of, 15.
Holbrook, Mr., 337, 367, 369.
Holy See, The, 17.
Horace, 8, 59, 69, 70, 279.
Horatii and Curiatii, 124.
Hungarians, 89.
Ida, Mt., 298.
Ildebrandinus Paduanus, 114,
216.
" Iliad," 241.
Imbriani, 31.
Intellect, Active, 263 ; Possible,
263, 264.
Isaiah, 47, 267.
,'acob's Ladder, 307.
Jacopo da Lentini, 77.
Jason, 52.
Jeremiah, 51, 188.
Jerome, St., 249.
376
HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Jerusalem, 51, 293, 295; the
Heavenly, 151.
Johannes Hispalensis, 248.
John of Montferrat, 87.
John, Pope, 50.
John the Baptist, 48.
Jowett, Rev. B., 242.
Judas Iscariot,.335.
Jugurtha, 221.
Justinian, 19.
Juvenal, 369. x
Ken, Bishop, 325.
Lagia, Monna, 208,^215.
Lamartine, Alphonse de, 361.
" Lancelot du Lac," 92.
Latham, Mr., 44.
Leah, 346.
Leconte de Lisle, 367.
Leo, Pope, 137.
Leonardo Aretino, 90.
Lethe, River, 302, 304, 362.
"Leviathan," Hobbes's, 136.
Lisetta, 191, 216.
Livy, 124, 125.
Longfellow, 228.
Lucan, 48, 69, 279.
Lucca, 26, 94.
Lucia, 341; Lucia, St., 5, 341.
Lucifer, 295, 296, 297, 301, 313.
Luni, Bishop of, 24.
Lunigiana, The, 24, 40.
Maccabees, Books of, 52.
Macedonia, 133.
Magi, 136.
Malaspina, Gherardino, 52.
Malaspina, Moroello, 25, 33, 37,
38, 41, 49, 222.
Malaspina, The Marchesi, 24.
Malebolge, 300.
Mandeville, 125.
Manentessa, 23.
Mantua, 141.
Map, Walter, 92.
Marco Lombardo, 334.
Maremma, The, 35.
Marlborough, 22.
Marsilio Ficino, 33.
Mary, The Blessed Virgin, 341.
Matilda, The Countess, 20, 346.
Matteo d'Acquasparta, Cardinal,
16.
Maximilian of Bavaria, 33.
Messer Marchese, 25.
Michael Scot, 246.
Michael, The Archangel, 285.
Milton, 221, 245, 362-3, 371.
Mino Mocato, 114.
Minos, 298, 309.
Monte Aperto, Battle of, 30.
Monte Catini, Combat of, 61.
Moore, Dr., 138.
Moronto, 6.
"Morte Darthur," 91.
Moses, 136.
Naples Museum, The, 352.
Nella, 230, 354.
Nicholas of Ostia, Cardinal,
34-5-
Nicholas, Pope, 330.
Ninus, 124.
Niobe, 223.
Numa Pompilius, 96.
"Odyssey," 241.
Onesto, 114.
Orcagna, Andrea, 251.
Orlandi, Guido, 208.
" Ormista," 124.
Orosius, 124.
Orsini, Cardinal, 52, 53.
Otto, of Friesing, Bishop, 125.
Ovid, 8, 39, 69, 269.
Pacific Ocean, 293.
Padua, 24.
Papacy, 49, 135-9.
Pargoletta, 226-7.
Paris, 10.
Passerini, 36.
Paul, St., 131, 138, 284, 285,
286, 364.
Peile's " Primer of Philology,"
239-40.
Peire Bremen Ricas Novas, 75.
Peire d'Alvernhe, 113.
Perini, Dino, 61.
Persia, 133.
Petrarch, 73, 74.
Pharaoh, 221.
Pharsalia, Battle of, 43 ; " Phar-
salia," poem, 49.
Philip le Bel, 49, 51, 221, 329,
331-
Phlegethon, River, 297.
Piano, Fortress of, 23.
Piazza San Martino, Florence, 5.
Piccarda, 54, 355.
Pilate, 154.
Pisa, 94.
Pisans, The, 354.
Pistoia, 222.
Plato, 248.
Plumptre, Dean, 26, 63, 203.
Poggi, Leone, 9.
INDEX 377
Porta San Piero, Florence, 5.
Portinari, Folco, 169.
Pratovecchio, 225.
Priors, Florentine, 18, 19.
Proven9al poets. (See Trouba-
dours.)
Provence, 73.
Psalms, 57, 58, 123.
Ptolemy, 186, 252.
Pythagoras, 246, 252.
Querini, Giovanni, 65.
Rachel, 346, 347.
Rajna, Signer Pio, 92, 156.
Ravenna, 28, 60.
Richard of St. Victor, 287.
Rinaldo d'Aquino, 114.
Robert of Naples, 27, 49, 61,
63, 273.
Romagna, The, 35.
Roman Empire, The, 45.
Roman People, The, 133.
Rome, 20, 49, 93, 96, 258, 329.
Rossetti, D. G., 29, 55, 230.
Rudolph, Emperor, 123, 234.
Rue du Fouarre, The, 26.
Ruskin, 189, 298, 316, 318,319,
326, 362, 371.
Salterello, Lapo, 23, 173.
Salvatico, Guido, 25.
San Gemignano, Republic, 17.
San Gaudenzo, 23.
Santa Apollonia, Convent of,
352-
Santa Croce del Corvo, Convent
of, 40.
Santa Maria Novella, Church of,
352.
378
HANDBOOK TO DANTE
Sarzana, 19.
Troya, 36.
Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi, 25.
Tuscans, The, 354.
Scartazzini, 31, 40, 171, 172,
Tuscany, 20, 35, 94, 95.
273-
Scheffer-Boichorst, 26, 40.
Ubaldini, Ugolino di, 23.
Scythians, 124.
Uguccione da Pisa, 44, 250,
Semiramis, 124, 125.
251.
Seneca, 96.
Uguccione della Faggiuola, 26,
" Sermo Calliopeus," 203.
40, 61.
Serravalle, Battle of, 38, 49.
Ulysses, 291-3.
Shakespeare, 7, 69, 354.
" Ulysses," poem, 291.
Sicily, 17, 93.
Usages, 187.
Siena, 94.
Siger (or Sigier), 126.
Val di Magra, 222.
Simone de' Bardi, 169.
Valley of Princes, 264, 304, 308,
Sordello, 9, 74-5, 189, 217.
325-6.
Spiriti, 175-7, 195-6.
Venice, 28.
St. James of Compostella, 13.
Verona, 24, 27, 141.
St. John's Gospel, 136.
Veronica, The, 149, 150, 164.
St. Luke's Gospel, 187, 188.
Vesoges, 124.
St. Mark's Gospel, 249, 250.
Via di San Procolo, 28.
St. Matthew's Gospel, 136, 249,
Villani, 4, 7, 8, 20, 22, 25, 49,
250.
86, 150, 355-
Statius, 69.
Vincent of Beauvais, 140.
Styx, River, 297.
Virgil, 8, 69, 70, 279, 289, 290,
339-
Tennyson, 291.
Virgilio, Giovanni del, 60, 61,
Thibaut of Navarre, 113.
62, 63, 64, 70, 273.
Thomas Aquinas, St., 246, 248,
Vision of Frate Alberico, 286.
249, 368.
Vision of Walkelin, 286.
Tiber, River, 304.
Vitelli, Prof., 92.
"Timaeus," 248.
Voltaire, 361.
Todeschini, 23.
Voyage of St. Brandan, 286.
Toynbee, Dr. Paget, 41, 92,
125, 140.
War prison, Dartmoor, 363.
"Tresor," 140.
Witte, 5, 35, 121, 122, 157, 231,
Troubadours, 20, 74, 85.
232, 272, 313.
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