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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 %ecero-ed APR 1-8 1893 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/dantehislifewritOObrowrich 
 
DANTE 
 
Ube Dilettante Xibrars* 
 
 1. DANTE AND HIS IDEAL. By Herbert Baynes, 
 
 M. R.A.S. With a Portrait. 
 
 2. BROWNING'S MESSAGE TO HIS TIMES. By 
 
 Dr. Edward Bkedoe. With a Portrait and Fac- 
 simile Letters. 
 
 3-4. THE DOCTOR, AND OTHER POEMS. By 
 
 T. E. Browne, M.A., of Clifton College, Author of 
 *• Fo'c's'le Yarns." 2 vols. 
 
 Oscar Browning. 
 Browning. 
 
 With a 
 With a 
 
 5. GOETHE. By 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 G. DANTE. By Oscar 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 Nos. 5 and 6 are enlarged from the articles in the 
 •' Encyclopcedia Britannica." 
 
 7. BROWNING'S CRITICISM OF LIFE. By W. F. 
 
 Revbll, Member of the London Browning Society. 
 
 8. HENRIK IBSEN. By the Rev. Philip H. Wick- 
 
 steed, M.A. 
 
 9. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. By John Under- 
 
 HILL. 
 
w>\ 
 
 Of r//f 
 
 CNIVERSITl 
 
Sar/iM- of 2)/im£E> ^ 
 
DANTE 
 
 Ibis %itc anb Mritinos 
 
 BY 
 
 OSCAR BROWNING 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO 
 New York : MACMILLAN & CO 
 
 w>^ yF THE .-_ 
 
do 
 HENEY MONTAGU BUTLEE, 
 
 MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 ^nO FIRST TAUGHT ME TO KNOW 
 
 AND LOVE DANTE. 
 
PEEFACB. 
 
 This book is based upon an article in 
 the last edition of the Encyclopcedia 
 Britannica. It has been carefully 
 revised in accordance with the most 
 recent publications on the subject, the 
 most important of which is the volume 
 of Prolegomeni which completes Scar- 
 tazzini's edition of the Divina Com- 
 media. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Family and Birth . , ' 1 
 
 Education 4 
 
 Friends 8 
 
 Political Life . H.~ 
 
 Beatrice .19 
 
 Office 24 
 
 Exile 31- 
 
 Dante's Ghibellinism 3^- 
 
 Wanderings ; . 38"" 
 
 Old Age and Death 43 
 
 Character of Dante's Genius 47 
 
 "Convito" 57 
 
 " De Vulgari Eloquentia" 59 
 
 *' De Monarchia " Gl 
 
 Eclogues . . . . • 64 
 
 Letters ......... 65 
 
 *♦ De Aqua et Terra " 68 
 
 *'DiviNA Commedia" . . . . . . .70 
 
 Hell 77 
 
 Purgatory 85 
 
 Paradise 89 
 
 Bibliography . 93 
 
 vii 
 
f^ OF THE ^ 
 
 XJNIVEESITl 
 
 DANTE. 
 
 Dante, or Durante Alighieri, was born Family 
 
 and 
 
 at Florence about the middle of May, ^iJ^^h. 
 1265. He was descended from an 
 ancient family, but not one of the 
 highest rank. His biographers have 
 attempted on very slight grounds to 
 deduce his origin from the Frangipani, 
 one of the oldest senatorial families of 
 Rome. We can affirm with greater cer- 
 tainty that he was connected with the 
 Elisei who took part in the building 
 of Florence under Charles the Grreat. 
 Dante himself does not, with the excep- 
 
 1 B 
 
2 DANTE, 
 
 fion of a few obscure and scattered 
 allusions, carry his ancestry beyond the 
 warrior Cacciaguida, whom he met in 
 Paredri, in the sphere of Mars {Tar. 
 XV. 87-148). Cacciaguida there tells 
 his descendant that he was born at 
 Florence, and was baptized there in the 
 Baptistry of San Giovanni, that he had 
 two brothers, Moronte and Eliseo, that 
 he married a wife who was born in the 
 valley of the Po, that he accompanied 
 the Emperor Conrad III. upon his cru- 
 sade into the Holy Land, where he died 
 among the infidels. In the following 
 canto (xvi. 34, foil.), Cacciaguida further 
 states that he was born in the 8e8io 
 of Porta San Pietro, in the very centre 
 of the city. Of Cacciaguida's brothers 
 ]\Ioronte and Eliseo we know absolutely 
 
DANTE'S FAMILY, 3 
 
 nothing. He had two sons Alighiero 
 and Preitenitto. Alighiero had also 
 two sons, Bello and Bellincione. Bello 
 was father of Geri del Bello, placed by 
 Dante in the Inferno^ and of three other 
 sons. Bellincione had amongst other 
 sons a second Alighiero, father of the 
 famous poet. This Alighiero married 4 
 Lapi di Chiarissimo Cialuffi, and afte i i rfy ^^ 
 death a certain Madonna Bella, whose 
 surname is not known. Alighiero 
 had one daughter, who was married 
 to Leone Poggi, a son, Francesco, who 
 married Pietra di Donato Brunatti, 
 and a son, Dante. Thus the family of 
 Dante held a respectable but not a 
 noble position among the citizens of 
 his beloved Florence. Had they been 
 reckoned in the very first rank, they 
 
 UNIVEBSITl 
 
4 DANTE, 
 
 could not liave remained in Florence 
 after the defeat of the Guelfs at Monta- 
 perti in 1260. It is clear, however, 
 that Dante's mother did so remain, for 
 Dante was born in Florence in 1265. 
 The heads of the Gruelf party did not 
 return till after the battle of Beneven- 
 tum, which was fought on February 
 26, 1266. 
 Educa- Dante was born under the sign of 
 the twms, '' the glorious stars pregnant 
 with virtue, to whom he owes his genius 
 such as it is." Astrologers considered 
 this constellation as favourable to litera- 
 ture and science, and Brunetto Latini, 
 Dante's preceptor, tells him in the Inferno 
 (xv. 25, foil.) that, if he follows its 
 guidance, he cannot fail to reach the 
 harbour of fame. Boccaccio relates 
 
EDUCATION, 5 
 
 that before his birth his mother dreamed 
 that she lay under a very lofty laurel, 
 growing in a green meadow, by a very 
 clear fountain, when she felt the pangs 
 of childbirth; that her child, feeding 
 on the berries which fell from the 
 laurel, and on the waters of the fountain, 
 in a very short time became a shepherd, 
 and attempted to reach the leaves of the 
 laurel, the fruit of which had nurtured 
 him; that, trying to obtain them, he 
 fell, and rose up, no longer a man, but 
 in the guise of a peacock. We know 
 little of Dante's boyhood except that 
 he was a hard student and a pupil of 
 Brunette Latini. Boccaccio tells us 
 that he became very familiar with Vergil, 
 Horace, Ovid, and Statins, and all other 
 famous poets ; and that, " taken by the 
 
6 DANTE, 
 
 sweetness of knowing the truth of the 
 things concealed in heaven, and finding 
 no other pleasure dearer to him in life, 
 he left all other worldly care and gave 
 himself to this alone ; and that no part 
 of philosophy might remain unseen by 
 him, he plunged with acute intellect into 
 the deepest recesses of theology, and so 
 far succeeded in his design that, caring 
 nothing for heat or cold, or watchings 
 or fastings, or any other bodily discom- 
 forts, by assiduous study he came to 
 know of the divine essence and of the 
 other separate intelligences all that 
 the human intellect can comprehend." 
 Leonardo Bruni says that " by study 
 of philosophy, of theology, astrology, 
 arithmetic, and geometry, by reading 
 of history, by the turning over many 
 
BRUNEI TO LA UN J. 7 
 
 curious books., watching and sweating 
 in his studies, he acquired the science 
 which he was to adorn and explain in 
 his verses." Of his teacher, BrunettO 
 Latini, of whom he speaks with the 
 most loving gratitude and affection, but 
 whose gross vices he does not hesitate 
 to brand with infamy, Giovanni Yillani 
 has left us a graphic picture : '' He 
 was a great philosopher, and a consum- 
 mate master of rhetoric, not only in 
 knowing how to speak well, but how to 
 write well. He it was who explained 
 the rhetoric of Tully and made the good 
 and useful book called Tesoro, and the 
 Tesoretto and the Chiave del Tesoro, and 
 other works in philosophy and of vices 
 and virtues, and he was secretary of our 
 commune. He was a worldly man ; but 
 
8 DANTE, 
 
 we have made mention of him because 
 he both began and directed the growth 
 of the Florentines, both in making them 
 ready in speaking well and in knowing 
 how to guide and direct our republic 
 according to the rules of politics." 
 Under this guidance Dante became 
 master of all the science of his age 
 at a time when it was not impossible 
 to know all that could be known. He 
 was a skilful draughtsman, and tells us 
 that on the anniversary of the death of 
 Beatrice he drew an angel on a tablet. 
 Frieuds He was an intimate friend of Griotto, 
 who has immortalized his youthful linea- 
 ments in the chapel of the Bargello, and 
 who is recorded to have drawn from 
 his friend's inspiration the allegories 
 of Virtue and Vice which fringe the 
 
DANTE'S FRIENDS. 9 
 
 frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel at 
 Padua. Nor was he less sensible to 
 the delights of music. Milton had not 
 a keener ear for the loud uplifted angel 
 trumpets and the immortal harps of 
 golden wires of the cherubim and sera- 
 phim ; and our English poet was proud 
 to compare his own friendship with 
 Henry Lawes with that between Dante 
 and Casella, " met in the milder shades 
 of Purgatory." Most dear to him of 
 all were the companions Cino di Pistoia, 
 Lapo Grianni, Gruido Cavalcanti, and 
 others, similarly gifted and dowered 
 with like tastes, who lived in the lively 
 streets of the city of the flowers, and 
 felt with him the first warm flush of 
 the coming renaissance. He has written 
 no sweeter or more melodious lines than 
 
lo DANTE, 
 
 those in wliicli he expresses the Avish 
 that he, with Guido and Lapo, might 
 be wafted by enchantment over the sea 
 wheresoever they might list, shielded 
 from fortune and evil times, and living 
 in such contentment that they should 
 wish to live always, and that the good 
 enchanter should bring Monna Vanna 
 and Monna Bice and that other lady 
 into their barque, where they should for 
 ever discourse of love and be for ever 
 happy. It is a wonderful thing (says 
 Leonardo Bruni) that, though he studied 
 without intermission, it would not have 
 appeared to any one that he studied, 
 from his joyous mien and youthful con- 
 versation. Like Milton, he was trained 
 in the strictest academical education 
 which the age afforded ; but Dante lived 
 
POLITICAL LIFE, n 
 
 under a warmer sun and brighter skies, 
 and found in the rich variety and gaiety 
 of his early life a defence against the 
 withering misfortunes of his later years. 
 Milton felfc too early the chill breath of 
 Puritanism, and the serious musing on 
 the experience of life, which saddened 
 the verse of both poets, deepened in 
 his case into grave and desponding 
 melancholy. 
 
 We must now consider the political Political 
 
 Life. 
 
 circumstances in which lay the activity 
 of Dante's manhood. From 1115, the 
 year of the death of Matilda, countess 
 of Tuscany, to 1215, Florence enjoyed 
 a nearly uninterrupted peace. Attached 
 to the Guelf party, it remained undivided 
 against itself. But in 1215 a private 
 feud between the families of Buondel- 
 
12 DANTE, 
 
 monte and Uberti introduced into the 
 city the horrors of civil war. Villani 
 (lib. v., cap. 38) relates how Buondel- 
 monte de' Baondelmonti, a noble youth 
 of Florence, being engaged to marry a 
 lady of the house of Amidei, allied him- 
 self instead to a Donati, and how Baon- 
 delraonte was attacked and killed by 
 the Amidei and Uberti at the foot of 
 the Ponte Vecchio, close by the pilaster 
 which bears the image of Mars. " The 
 death of Messer Buondelmonte was the 
 occasion and beginning of the accursed 
 parties of Guelfs and Ghibellines in 
 Florence." Of the seventy-two families 
 then in Florence, thirty-nine became 
 Gruelf under the leadership of the Buon- 
 delmonte, and the rest Ghibelline under 
 the Uberti. The strife of parties was 
 
GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES. 13 
 
 for a while allayed by the war against 
 Pisa in 1222, and the constant struggles 
 against Siena ; but, in 1248, Frederick 
 II. sent into the city his natural son, 
 Frederick, prince of Antioch, with 1,600 
 German knights. The Guelfs were 
 driven away from the town, and took 
 refuge, part in Montevarchi, part in 
 Capraia. The Ghibellines, masters of 
 Florence, behaved with great severity, 
 and destroyed the towers and palaces 
 of the Guelf nobles. At last the people 
 became impatient. They rose in rebel- 
 lion, deposed the podesta, elected in his 
 place a captain of the people, established 
 a more democratic constitution, and, 
 encouraged by the death of Frederick 
 in December, 1250, recalled the exiled 
 Guelfs. Manfred, the bastard son of 
 
14 DANTE, 
 
 Frederick, pursued the policy of his 
 father. He stimulated the Ghibelline 
 Uberti to rebel against their position of 
 subjection. A rising of the vanquished 
 party was put down by the people, in 
 July, 1258, the Ghibellines were expelled 
 from the town, and the towers of the 
 Uberti razed to the ground. The exiles 
 betook themselves to the friendly city 
 of Siena. Manfred sent them assis- 
 tance. The Florentines, after vainly 
 demanding their surrender, despatched 
 an army against them. On September 
 4, 1260, was fought the great battle 
 Montaperti, which dyed the Arbia red, 
 and in which the Guelfs were entirely 
 defeated. The hand which held the 
 banner of the republic was sundered by 
 the sword of a traitor. For the first 
 
BATTLE OF MONTAPERTI. 15 
 
 time in the history of Florence the 
 Caroccio was taken. Florence lay at 
 the mercy of her enemies. A parlia- 
 ment was held at Empoli, in which the 
 deputies of Siena, Pisa, Arezzo, and 
 other Tuscan towns consulted on the 
 best means of securing their new war 
 power. They voted that the accursed 
 Guelf city should be blotted out. But 
 Farinata of the Uberti stood up in their 
 midst, bold and defiant as when he stood 
 erect among the sepulchres of hell, and 
 said that if, from the whole number of 
 the Florentines he alone should remain, 
 he would not suffer, whilst he could 
 ^ield a sword, that his country should w/ 
 be destroyed, and that, if it were neces- 
 sary to die a thousand times for her, a 
 thousand times would he be ready to 
 
1 6 DANTE. 
 
 encounter death. Help came to the 
 Guelfs from an unexpected quarter. 
 Clement IV., elected pope in 1265, 
 offered the crown of Apulia and Sicily 
 to Charles of Anjou. The French 
 prince, passing rapidly through Lom- 
 bardy, Romagna, and the Marches, 
 reached Rome by way of Spoleto, was 
 crowned on January 6, 1266, and on 
 February 26, defeated and killed Man- 
 fred at Benevento. In such a storm of 
 conflict did Dante first see the light. 
 In 1267, the Guelfs were recalled; but 
 instead of settling down in peace with 
 their opponents, they summoned Charles 
 of Anjou to vengeance, and the Ghi- 
 bellines were driven out. The meteor 
 passage of Conradin gave hope to the 
 imperial party, which was quenched 
 
CONRADIN, \7 
 
 when the head of the fair-haired boy 
 fell on the scaffold at Naples. Pope 
 after pope tried in yain to make peace. 
 Gregory X. placed the rebellious city 
 under an interdict ; Nicolas III. in 
 1280 patched up a hollow truce. In 
 1282, the constitution of Florence re- 
 ceived the final form which it retained 
 till the collapse of freedom. From the 
 three arti maggiori were chosen six 
 priors, in whose hands was placed the 
 government of the republic. They re- 
 mained in office for two months, and 
 during that time lived and shared a 
 common table in the Public Palace. 
 We shall see what influence this office 
 had upon the fate of Dante. The suc- 
 cess of the Sicilian Vespers, the vacancy 
 of the Holy See, the death of Charles 
 
 
 
i8 DANTE. 
 
 of Anjou, roused again tlie courage of 
 the Gliibellines. They took possession 
 of Arezzo, and threatened to drive out 
 the Gruelfs from Tuscany. The his- 
 torian Ammirato has left us a lively 
 account of the skirmishes against Arezzo 
 in the year 1288, a prelude to the great 
 battle of Campaldino in the following 
 summer. Then it was that Dante saw 
 " horsemen moving camp and commenc- 
 ing the assault, and holding muster, and 
 the march of foragers, the shock of 
 tournaments, and race of jousts, now 
 with trumpets and now with bells, with 
 drums and castle signals, with native 
 things and foreign " (I/^/. xxii. 1, foil.). 
 On June 11, 1289, at Campaldino 
 near Poppi, in the Casentino, the Grhi- 
 bellmes were utterly defeated. They 
 
CAMPALDINO. 19 
 
 never again recovered their hold on 
 Florence, but the violence of faction 
 survived under other names. Dante 
 fought with distinction at Campaldino, 
 was present shortly afterwards at the 
 battle of Caprona {Inf. xxi. 95, foil.), 
 and returned in September, 1289, to his 
 studies and his love. His peace was 
 of short duration. On June 9, 1290, 
 died Beatrice, whose mortal love had 
 guided him for thirteen years, and 
 whose immortal spirit purified his later 
 life, and revealed to him the mysteries 
 of Paradise. 
 
 Dante had first met Beatrice Porti- Beatrice, 
 nari at the house of her father Folco, 
 on May Day, 1274. In his own words, 
 " already nine times after my birth the 
 heaven of light had returned as it were 
 
20 DANTE, 
 
 to the same point, when there appeared 
 to my eyes the glorious lady of my 
 mind, who was by many called Beatrice, 
 who knew not what to call her. She 
 had already been so long in this life 
 that already in its time the starry 
 lieaven had moved toward the east the 
 twelfth part of a degree, so that she 
 appeared to me about the beginning of 
 her ninth year, and I saw her about the 
 end of my ninth year. Her dress on 
 that day was of a most noble colour, a 
 subdued and goodly crimson, girdled 
 and adorned in such sort as best suited 
 Avith her tender age. At that moment 
 I saw most truly that the spirit of life 
 which hath its dwelling in the secretest 
 chamber of the heart began to tremble 
 so violently that the least pulses of my 
 
BEATRICE. 21 
 
 body shook therewith ; and in trembhng 
 it said these words, ' Ecce deus fortior 
 me qui veniens dominabitur mihi.' " In 
 the Vita Nuova is written the story of 
 his passion from its commencement to 
 within a year after the lady's death. 
 He saw Beatrice only once or twice, and 
 she probably knew little of him. She 
 married Simone de' Bardi. But the 
 worship of her lover was stronger for 
 the remoteness of its object. The last 
 chapter of the Vita Nuova relates how, 
 after the lapse of a year, " it was given 
 me to behold a wonderful vision, where- 
 in I saw things which determined me 
 that I would say nothing further of this 
 blessed one until such time as I could 
 discourse more worthily qoncerning her. 
 And to this end I labour all I can, as 
 
22 DANTE. 
 
 she in truth knoweth. Therefore if it 
 be His pleasure through whom is the 
 life of all things that my life continue 
 with me a few years, it is my hope that 
 I shall yet write concerning her what 
 hath not before been written of any 
 woman. After the which may it seem 
 good unto Him who is the Master of 
 grace that my spirit should go hence to 
 behold the glory of its lady, to wit, of 
 that blessed Beatrice who now gloriously 
 gazes on the countenance of Him qui 
 est per omnia saecula benedictus." In 
 the Convito he resumes the story of his 
 life. *' When I had lost the first delight, 
 of my soul (that is, Beatrice), I remained 
 so pierced with sadness that no com- 
 forts availed me anything; yet after 
 some time my mind, desirous of health, 
 
DANTE'S MARRIAGE. 23 
 
 sought to return to the method by 
 which other disconsolate ones had found 
 consolation, and I set myself to read 
 that little-known book of Boetius in 
 which he consoled himself when a 
 prisoner and an exile. And hearing 
 that Tully had written another work, 
 in which, treating of friendship, he had 
 given words of consolation to Laslius, I 
 set myself to read that also." He so 
 far recoyered from the shock of his 
 loss that in 1292 he married Gemma, 
 daughter of Manetto Donati, a con- 
 nection of the celebrated Corso Donati, 
 afterwards Dante's bitter foe. It is 
 possible that she is the lady mentioned 
 in the Yita Niiova as sitting full of pity 
 at her window and comforting Dante 
 for his sorrow. By this wife he had 
 
24 DANTE, 
 
 seven children; and although he never 
 mentions her in the Divina Commedia^ 
 and although she did not accompany 
 him into exile, there is no reason to 
 suppose that she was other than a good 
 wife, or that the union was otherwise 
 than happy. Certain it is that he spares 
 the memory of Corso in his great poem, 
 and speaks kindly of his kinsmen Pic- 
 carda and Forese. 
 
 Dante now began to take an active 
 part in politics. He was inscribed in 
 the arte of the Medici and Speziali, 
 which made him eligible as one of the 
 six priori^ to whom the government of 
 the city was entrusted in 1282. Ac- 
 cording to documents still existing in 
 the archives of Florence, he appeared in 
 public life on December 10, 1296, and 
 
PUBLIC LIFE, 25 
 
 on March 14, 1297, when he offered to 
 the Council of the Centumviri a grant 
 of money to enable Charles, king of 
 Jerusalem and of Sicily, to subdue the 
 rebel Sicilians. In both cases he was 
 unsuccessful. Filelfo says that Dante 
 served on fourteen embassies, a state- 
 ment not only unsupported by evidence, 
 but impossible in itself. An embassy, 
 which Filelfo does not mention, to the 
 town of San Gemignano, in 1299, does 
 not rest on very good evidence. The 
 one public employment, which we know 
 Dante to have held, is of a nature which 
 we should not have expected. In April, 
 1301, a proposal was made to widen and 
 straighten the Via di San Procolo from 
 the Borgo della Piangentina as far as 
 the Torrente Affrico. For this purpose 
 
26 DANTE. 
 
 it was necessary to pull down the house 
 of Ruba d'AUerone. This work was 
 entrusted to the care of Dante Alighieri, 
 a notary and secretary being attached to 
 liim as an assistant. It is possible from 
 this circumstance that Dante had been 
 trained as an architect. From June 15 
 to August 15, 1300, Dante held the 
 office of prior, which, as he informs us, 
 was the source of all the miseries of his 
 life. The spirit of faction had again 
 broken out in Florence. The two rival 
 families were the Cerchi and the Donati, 
 — the first of great wealth, but recent 
 origin ; the last of ancient ancestry, but 
 poor. A quarrel had arisen in Pistoia 
 between the two branches of the Can- 
 cellieri, — the Bianchi and Neri, the 
 Whites and the Blacks. The quarrel 
 
CARDINAL ACQUASPARTA, 27 
 
 spread to Florence, where tlie Donati 
 took the side of the Blacks, the Cerchi 
 of the Whites. Pope Boniface VIII. , 
 who was yery anxious to make Tuscany 
 a province of the Holy See, was asked 
 to mediate, and sent Cardinal Matteo 
 d'Acquasparta to maintain peace. He 
 arrived just as Dante entered upon his 
 office as prior. The cardinal effected 
 nothing, and in December, 1300, the 
 heads of the different factions were 
 banished in different directions to a 
 distance from the capital. The Blacks 
 were sent to Citta della Pieve in the 
 Tuscan mountains ; the Whites, amongst 
 whom was Dante's dearest friend Guido 
 Cavalcanti, to Serezzano, in the un- 
 healthy Maremma. After some time 
 both parties returned, Guido Cavalcanti 
 
28 DANTE, 
 
 SO ill with fever that he shortly after- 
 wards died. The journey of Charles of 
 Valois to Rome gave the Blacks the 
 opportunity of gaining the upper hand. 
 At a meeting held in the church of 
 the Holy Trinity the Whites were de- 
 nounced as Grhibellines, enemies of 
 France and the Pope, and the French 
 prince was invited to the town as peace- 
 maker, to defend the Gruelfs against 
 machinations. Charles of Valois marched 
 from Pavia and took up his abode in 
 the Oltr' Arno, on All Saints' Day, 1301. 
 Five days afterwards the signory and 
 the protection of the city were com- 
 mitted to him. Corso Donati, who had 
 been banished a second time, returned 
 in force, and summoned the Blacks to 
 arms. The prisons were broken open, 
 
DANTE'S EXILE, 29 
 
 the podesta driven from tlie town, the 
 Cerchi confined within their houses, 
 while a third of the city was destroyed 
 with fire and sword. By the help of 
 Charles the Blacks were victorious. 
 They appointed Cante de' Gabrielli of 
 Grubbio as podesta, a man devoted to 
 their interests. More than 600 Whites 
 were condemned to exile and cast as 
 beggars upon the world. Their houses 
 were destroyed and their property con- 
 fiscated. On January 27, 1302, Dante, 
 with three others, was accused of mal- 
 versation and other crimes, and was 
 condemned to pay a fine of 5,000 small 
 florins. If the money was not paid 
 within three days, their property was 
 to be destroyed and laid waste ; if they 
 did pay the fine, they were to be exiled 
 
 tJNrVERSITl ) 
 
30 DANTE. 
 
 for two years from Tuscany; in any 
 case they were never again to hold office 
 in the republic. Forty days later, on 
 March 10 of the same year, not having 
 obeyed the citation, Dante, with fourteen 
 others, was condemned to be burned 
 alive if they should come into the power 
 of the republic. Similar sentences were 
 passed on September 2, 1311, arxd on 
 November 6, 1315. It is clear from 
 Villani that the charge of malversation 
 was of a political nature, and was 
 founded on Dante's conduct in his office 
 as prior. Dante received the news of 
 his banishment at Siena. Foreseeing the 
 fate which awaited him, he had left the 
 city and never saw its towers again. It 
 has been said that he was at this time 
 absent on an embassy to Pope Boniface 
 
LIFE IN EXILE, 31 
 
 VIII.5 but it is doubtful whether the 
 embassy was ever sent, and it is certain 
 that Dante never formed part of it. 
 
 The exiles met first at Grargonza, a Exile. 
 castle between Siena and Arezzo, and 
 then at Arezzo itself. They joined 
 themselves to the Ghibellines, to which 
 party the podesta Uguccione della Fag- 
 giuola belonged. The Ghibellines, how- 
 ever, were divided amongst themselves, 
 and the Grreen Grhibellines were not 
 disposed to favour the cause of the 
 White Gruelfs. They found a more 
 sympathetic defender in Scarpetta degli 
 Ordelaffi at Forli. From this place 
 Dante probably went to Bartolommeo 
 della Scala, lord of Verona, where the 
 country of the great Lombard gave him 
 his first refuge and his first hospitable 
 
32 DANTE. 
 
 reception. Can Grande, to whom he 
 afterwards dedicated the Paradiso, was 
 then a boy. Bartolommeo died in 1304, 
 and it is possible that Dante may have 
 remained in Verona till his death. In 
 September, 1303, to use the language 
 of Dante, the fleur-de-lis had entered 
 Anagni, and Christ had a second time 
 been buffeted in the person of his vicar. 
 Boniface YIII. did not survive the insult 
 long, but died in the following month. 
 He was succeeded by Benedict XI., who 
 did his best to give peace to his dis- 
 tracted country. Immediately after his 
 accession the Pope sent the Cardinal da 
 Prato to Florence, who arrived there 
 in March, 1304. The people received 
 him with enthusiasm; ambassadors came 
 to him from the Whites ; and he did his 
 
CARDINAL DA PRATO, 33 
 
 best to reconcile the two parties. But 
 the Blacks resisted all his efforts. He 
 shook the dust from off his feet, and 
 departed, leaving the city under an 
 interdict. Foiled by the calumnies and 
 machinations of the one party, the car- 
 dinal gave his countenance to the other. 
 It happened that Corso Donati and the 
 heads of the Black party were absent at 
 Pistoia. Da Prato advised the Whites 
 to attack Florence, deprived of its heads 
 and impaired by fire. An army was 
 collected of 16,000 foot and 9,000 horse. 
 Communications were opened with the 
 Grhibellines of Bologna and Romagna. 
 But the forces of the exiles, badly led, 
 reached the gates of the city only to 
 find themselves unsupported from with- 
 in. They were driven to retreat, all 
 
 D 
 
34 DANTE, 
 
 hope of return became impossible, and 
 Dante felt for the first time the full 
 bitterness of exile. It was after the 
 failure of this ill-conceived attempt that 
 Dante's wanderings really began. Filled 
 with contempt at the baseness and 
 incapacity of his fellow sufferers, he 
 wished that, disdaining the support of 
 their companionship, he had stood alone, 
 and made a party by himself. This, 
 indeed, we must consider Dante to have 
 done, if we would understand the real 
 Gh?bei- ii^ture of his Ghibellinism. Dante had 
 iiuism. ^^^^ ho^^T^ and bred a Gruelf, and it was 
 only under the pressure of inevitable 
 necessity that he and his friends allied 
 themselves with the other side. If we 
 rise beyond the limits of mere local 
 quarrels, we find in Italian history that 
 
DANTE'S GHIBELLINISM, 35 
 
 the Gruelf party was, generally speaking, 
 favourable to liberty. The municipal 
 privileges of the great Italian cities rose 
 under the protection of the popes, while 
 the emperors only crossed the Alps to 
 crush their ancient independence, and 
 depress them beneath the yoke of some 
 feudal representative. The horse of the 
 emperor Barbarossa trampled upon the 
 ashes of Milan, whereas the straw-built 
 fortress of the Lombard league bore the 
 name of Pope Alexander. Had it not 
 breathed the air of freedom, the life of 
 Florence could not have survived the 
 period of its infancy, stifled as it after- 
 wards was by the preponderance of the 
 Medici. Dante could not have been^ 
 indifferent or ungrateful to the cause 
 which had given to his beloved Italy all 
 
36 DANTE. 
 
 that made it valuable to tlie world. But 
 he saw that the conditions of the time 
 were altered, and that other dangers 
 menaced the welfare of his country. 
 There was no fear now that Florence, 
 Siena, Pisa, Arezzo should be razed to 
 the ground in order that the castle of 
 the lord might overlook the humble 
 cottages of his contented subjects ; but 
 there was danger lest Italy should be 
 torn in sunder by its own jealousies and 
 passions, and lest the fair domain 
 bounded by the sea and the Alps should 
 never properly assert the force of its 
 individuality, and should present a con- 
 temptible contrast to a united France 
 and a confederated Germany. Sick 
 with petty quarrels and dissensions, 
 Dante strained his eyes towards the hills 
 
THE VELTRO. zi 
 
 for the appearance of a deliverer, who 
 should hush the jar of discord, discipline 
 into effectiveness the luxuriant forces 
 of the peninsula, and, united in spiri- 
 tual harmony with the vicar of Christ, 
 show for the first time to the world an 
 example of a government where the 
 strongest force and the highest wisdom 
 were interpenetrated by all that God 
 had given to the world of piety and 
 justice. In this sense and in no other 
 was Dante a Ghibelline. The vision was 
 never realized — the hope was never 
 fulfilled. Not till our own day has 
 Italy become united and the '' grey- 
 hound of deliverance " has chased from 
 city to city the "wolf" of the papacy. 
 But is it possible to say that the dream 
 did not work its own realization, or to 
 
38 DANTE, 
 
 deny that the high ideal of the poet, 
 after inspiring a long succession of 
 minds as lofty as his own, has become 
 after five hundred years embodied in 
 the constitution of a state which ac- 
 knowledges no stronger bond of union 
 than a common worship of the exile's 
 indignant and impassioned verse ? 
 Wander- It is vcry difficult to determine with 
 exactness the order and the place of 
 Dante's wanderings. Many cities and 
 castles in Italy have claimed the honour 
 of giving him shelter, or of being for 
 a time the home of his inspired muse. 
 He certainly spent some time with 
 Count Guido Salvatico in the Casentino 
 near the sources of the Arno, probably 
 in the castle of Porciano, and with 
 Uguccione in the castle of Faggiuola in 
 
 ings 
 
WANDERINGS, 39 
 
 r- 
 
 the mountains of Urbino. After this he 
 is said to have visited the University of 
 Bologna ; and in August, 1306, we find 
 him at Padua. Cardinal Napoleon 
 Orsini, the legate of the French Pope 
 Clement Y., had put Bologna under a 
 ban, dissolved the university, and driven 
 the professors to the northern city. In 
 May or June, 1307, the same cardinal 
 collected the Whites at Arezzo and tried 
 to induce the Florentines to recall them. 
 The name of Dante is found attached 
 to a document signed by the Whites in 
 the church of St. Gaudenzio in the Mu- 
 gello. This enterprise came to nothing. 
 Dante retired to the castle of Moroello ^ 
 della Spina in the Lunigiana, where the 
 marble ridges of the Apennines descend 
 in precipitous slopes to the Grulf of 
 
40 DANTE. 
 
 Spezzia. From this time till the arrival 
 of the emperor Henry VII. in Italy, 
 October, 1310, all is uncertain. His old 
 enemy Corso Donati had at last united 
 himself with Uguccione della Faggiuola, 
 the leader of the Ghibellines. Dante 
 thought it possible that this might lead 
 to his return. But in 1308 Corso was 
 declared a traitor, attacked in his house, 
 put to flight, and killed. Dante lost his 
 last hope. He left Tuscany and went 
 to Can Grande della Scala at Yerona. 
 From this place we may believe that he 
 visited the University of Paris, studied 
 in the Rue Fouarre, became acquainted 
 with the Low Countries, and not im- 
 probably crossed the Channel and went 
 to Oxford, and saw where the heart of 
 Prince Harry was worshipped upon 
 
HENRY OF LUXEMBURG. 41 
 
 London Bridge. The election of Henry 
 of Luxemburg as emperor stirred again 
 liis hopes of a deliverer. He left Paris 
 and returned hastily to Italy. At the 
 end of 1310, in a letter to the princes 
 and people of Italy, he proclaimed the 
 coming of the saviour ; at Milan he did 
 personal homage to his sovereign. The 
 Florentines made every preparation to 
 resist the emperor. Dante wrote from 
 the Casentino a letter dated March 31, 
 1311, in which he rebuked them for 
 their stubbornness and obstinacy. Henry 
 still lingered in Lombardy at the siege 
 of Cremona, when Dante, on April 16, 
 1311, in a celebrated epistle, upbraided 
 his delay, argued that the crown of 
 Italy was to be won on the Arno rather 
 than on the Po, and urged the tarrying 
 
42 DANTE, 
 
 emperor to liew the rebellious Floren- 
 tines like Agag in pieces before the 
 Lord. Henry was as deaf to this ex- 
 hortation as the Florentines themselves. 
 After reducing Lombardy he passed 
 from Genoa to Pisa, and on June 29, 
 
 1312, was crowned in Rome. Then at 
 length he moved towards Tuscany by 
 way of Umbria. Leaving Cortona and 
 Arezzo, he reached Florence on Septem- 
 ber 19. He did not dare to attack it, 
 but returned in November to Pisa. In 
 the summer of the following year he 
 prepared to invade the kingdom of 
 Naples ; but in the neighbourhood of 
 Siena he caught a fever and died at the 
 monastery of Buonconvento, August 24, 
 
 1313. The hopes of Dante and his 
 party were buried in his grave. 
 
OLD AGE, 43 
 
 After the death of the emperor Henry oid Age 
 
 and 
 
 (Bruni tells us) Dante passed the rest Death. 
 of his life in great poverty, sojourning 
 in various places throughout Lombardy, 
 Tuscany, and the Romagna, under the 
 protection of various lords, until at 
 length he retired to Ravenna, where he 
 ended his life. Very little can be added 
 to this meagre story. There is reason 
 for supposing that he stayed at Grubbio 
 with Bosone dei Rafaelli, and tradition 
 assigns him a cell in the monastery of 
 St. Croce di Fonte Avellana in the same 
 district, situated on the slopes of Catria, 
 one of the highest of the Apennines. 
 After the death of Pope Clement V. he 
 addressed a letter, dated July 14, 1314, 
 to the cardinals in conclave, urging them 
 to elect an Italian pope. About this 
 
44 DANTE, 
 
 time he came to Lucca, then lately 
 conquered by his friend Uguccione, 
 completed the last cantos of the Purga- 
 tory, and became enamoured of the cour- 
 teous Grentucca, whose name had been 
 whispered to him by her countrymen on 
 the slopes of the Mountain of Purifi- 
 cation. In August, 1315, was fought the 
 battle of Monte Catini, a day of humi- 
 liation and mourning for the Gruelfs. 
 Ugiiccione made but little use of his 
 victory; and the Florentines marked 
 their vengeance on his adviser by 
 condemning Dante yet once again to 
 death if he ever should come into their 
 power. In the beginning of the follow- 
 ing year Uguccione lost both his cities 
 of Pisa and Lucca. At this time Dante 
 was offered an opportunity of returning 
 
CAN GRANDE DELLA SCALA. 45 
 
 to Florence. The conditions given to 
 the exiles were that they shonld pay a 
 fine and walk in the dress of humiliation 
 to the church of St. John, and there 
 do penance for their offences. Dante 
 refused to tolerate this shame ; and the 
 letter is still extant in which he declines 
 to enter Florence except with honour, 
 secure that the means of life will not 
 fail him, and that in any corner of the 
 world he will be able to gaze at the sun 
 and the stars, and meditate on the sweet- 
 est truths of philosophy. He preferred 
 to take refuge with his most illustrious 
 protector. Can Grrande della Scala of 
 Yerona, then a young man of twenty- 
 five, rich, liberal, and the favoured head 
 of the Grhibelline party. His name has 
 been immortalized by an eloquent pane- 
 
46 DANTE, 
 
 gyric in the seventeenth canto of the 
 Faradiso, Whilst at the court of 
 Verona he is said to have maintained 
 in the neighbouring city of Mantua the 
 philosophical thesis De Aqua et Terras 
 which is included in his minor works. 
 The last years of his life were spent at 
 Ravenna, under the protection of Gruido 
 da Polenta. In his service Dante 
 undertook an embassy to the Yenetians. 
 He failed in the object of his mission, 
 and, returning disheartened and broken 
 in spirit through the unhealthy lagoons, 
 cauofht a fever and died in Ravenna, 
 September 14, 1321. His bones still 
 repose there. His doom of exile has 
 been reversed by the Union of Italy, 
 which has made the city of his birth 
 and the various cities of his wander- 
 
DEATH. 47 
 
 ings component members of a common 
 country. His son Pietro, who wrote a 
 commentary on tlie Divina Commedia, 
 settled as judge in Verona. His 
 dauofliter Beatrice lived as a nun in 
 Ravenna. His direct line became 
 extinct in 1509 ; but the blood still 
 runs in the veins of the Marchesi 
 Serego Alighieri, a noble family of the 
 city of the Scaligers. 
 
 Dante may be said to have concen- p^ai*ac- 
 
 *^ ter of 
 
 trated in himself the spirit of the Qenius! 
 Middle Age. Whatever there was of 
 piety, of philosophy, of poetry, of love 
 of nature, and of love of knowledge in 
 those times is drawn to a focus in his 
 writings. He is the first great name 
 in literature after the night of the Dark 
 Ages. The Italian language in all its 
 
48 DANTE, 
 
 purity and sweetness, in its aptitude for 
 the tenderness of love and the violence 
 of passion or the clearness of philo- 
 sophical argument, sprang fully grown 
 and fully armed from his brain. The 
 Vita Nuova is still the best introduction 
 to the study of the Tuscan tongue ; the 
 astronomy and science of the Divine 
 Comedy are obscure only in a transla- 
 tion. Dante's reputation has passed 
 through many vicissitudes, and much 
 trouble has been spent by critics in 
 comparing him with other poets of 
 established fame. Read and com- 
 mented upon in the Italian universities 
 in the generation immediately succeed- 
 ing his death, his name became obscured 
 as the sun of the renaissance rose higher 
 towards its meridian. In the seventeenth 
 
DANTE'S GENIUS, 4 
 
 century lie was less read than Petrarch, 
 Tasso, or Ariosto ; in the eighteenth he 
 was almost universally neglected. His 
 fame is now fully vindicated. Transla- 
 tions and commentaries issue from every 
 press in Europe and America. Dante 
 societies are formed to investigate the 
 diJB&culties of his works. He occupies in 
 the lecture-rooms of regenerated Italy a 
 place by the side of those great masters 
 whose humble disciple he avowed himself 
 to be. The Divine Comedy is indeed as 
 true an epic as the MneiA^ and Dante is 
 as real a classic as Vergil. His metre is 
 as pliable and flexible to every mood of 
 emotion, his diction as plaintive and as 
 sonorous. Like him he can immortalize, 
 by a simple expression, a person, a place, 
 or a phase of nature. Dante is even 
 
 E 
 
50 DANTE. 
 
 truer in description than Vergil, whether 
 he paints the snow falling in the Alps, 
 or the homeward flight of birds, or the 
 swelling of an angry torrent. But under 
 this georgeous pageantry of poetry there 
 lies a unity of a conception, a power 
 of philosophic grasp, an earnestness of 
 religion, which to the Roman poet were 
 entirely unknown. Still more striking 
 is the similarity between Dante and 
 Milton. This may be said to lie rather 
 in the kindred nature of their subjects, 
 and in the parallel development of 
 their minds, than in any mere external 
 resemblance. • In both the man was 
 greater than the poet, the souls of both 
 were "like a star and dwelt apart." 
 Both were academically trained in the 
 deepest studies of their age ; the labour 
 
DANTE AND MILTON. 51 
 
 which made Dante lean made Milton 
 blind. The " Doricke sweetnesse " of 
 the English poet is not absent from the 
 tender pages of the Yita Nuova. The 
 middle life of each was spent in active 
 controversy ; each lent his services to 
 the state ; each felt the quarrels of his 
 age to be the "business of posterity," 
 and left his warnings to ring in the ears 
 of a later time. The lives of both were 
 failures. " On evil days though fallen, 
 and evil tongues," they gathered the 
 concentrated experience of their lives 
 into one immortal work, the quint- 
 essence of their hopes, their knowledge, 
 and their sufferings. But Dante is 
 something more than this. Milton's 
 voice is grown faint to us — we have 
 passed into other modes of expression 
 
52 DANTE, 
 
 and of thouglit. But if we had to 
 select two names in literature who are 
 still exercising their full influence on 
 mankind, and whose teaching is still 
 developing new sides to the coming 
 generations, we should choose the names 
 of Dante and Goethe. Goethe preached 
 a new gospel to the world, the pagan 
 virtue of self- culture, a sympathy Ayhich 
 almost passed into indifference. There 
 is no department of modern literature 
 or thought which does not bear upon it 
 the traces of the sage of Weimar. But 
 if we rebel against this teaching, and 
 yearn once more for the ardour of belief, 
 the fervour of self-sacrifice, the scorn 
 of scorn and the hate of hate which is 
 the meed of the coward and the traitor, 
 where shall we find them but in the 
 
DANTE AND GOETHE. 53 
 
 pages of the Florentine ? The religion 
 of the future, if it be founded on faith, 
 will demand that faith be reconciled 
 with all that the mind can apprehend of 
 knowledge or the heart experience of 
 emotion. The saint of those days will 
 be trained, not so much on ascetic 
 counsels of Imitation, or in Thoughts 
 which base man's greatness on the 
 consciousness of his fall, as on the 
 verse of the poet, theologian, and 
 philosopher, who stands with equal 
 right in the conclave of the doctors and 
 on the slopes of Parnassus, and in whom 
 the ardour of study is one with the love 
 of Beatrice, and both are made sub- 
 servient to lift the soul from the abyss 
 of hell, along the terraces of Purgatory, 
 to the spheres of Paradise, till it gazes 
 
54 DANTE. 
 
 on the ineffable revelation of the exis- 
 tence of God Himself, which can only 
 be apprehended by the eye of faith. 
 
 It now only remains to give some 
 account of Dante's works. There is 
 no doubt that the first of his literary 
 compositions were lyrical poems. The 
 earliest sonnets in the Yita Nuova^ that 
 of the eaten hearts, was composed at 
 the age of eighteen. His lyrics may 
 be divided into three periods, the first 
 ending at 1291, the second at 1313, and 
 the third at 1321. Many of the poems 
 he wrote have not come down to us, 
 whereas many of those which are attri- 
 buted to him are not genuine. Some 
 of these, which have been preserved 
 under the name of Dante, belong to 
 Dante da Maiano, a poet of a harsher 
 
LYRICAL POEMS. 55 
 
 style; others which bear the name of 
 Aldighiero are referable to Dante's sons, 
 Jacopo or Pietro, or to his grandsons; 
 others may be ascribed to Dante's con- 
 temporaries and predecessors, Cino da 
 Pistoia, and others. Those which are 
 genuine secure Dante a place among 
 lyrical poets scarcely if at all inferior 
 to that of Petrarch. Fraticelli, whose 
 edition is the best, accepts as undoubt- 
 edly genuine forty-four sonnets, ten 
 hallate, twenty canzoni, and three sestine ; 
 whereas Giuliani only allows him thirty- 
 seven sonnets, five ballate, twenty can- 
 zone^ and one single sestina. The Vita 
 Nuova or Young Life of Dante contains 
 the history of the poet's love for Bea- 
 trice. Like the In Memoriam of Tenny- 
 son, it follows all the varying phases of 
 
56 DANTE. 
 
 a deep and overmastering passion from 
 its commencement to its close. ^ He 
 describes how he met Beatrice as a 
 child, himself a child, how he had often 
 sought her glance, how she once greeted 
 him in the street, how he feigned a 
 false love to hide his true love, how he 
 fell ill and saw in a dream the death 
 and transfiguration of his beloved, how 
 she died, and how his health failed from 
 sorrow, how the tender compassion of 
 another lady nearly won his heart from 
 its first affection, how Beatrice appeared 
 to him in a vision and reclaimed his 
 heart, and how at last he saw a vision 
 which induced him to devote himself 
 to study, that he might be more fit to 
 glorify her who gazes on the Face of 
 God for ever. This simple story is 
 
" VITA NUOVA:' S7 
 
 interspersed witli sonneMi, hallate, and 
 canzoni, cliiefly written at the time to 
 emphasize some mood of his changing 
 passion. After each of these in nearly 
 every case follows an explanation in 
 prose, which is intended to make the 
 thought and argument intelligible to 
 those to whom the language of poetry 
 was not familiar. This was probably 
 written between 1292 and 1295. The 
 first edition is that of Sermantelli at 
 Florence in 1516. The best edition is 
 that of Witte, published by Brockhaus 
 at Leipsic in 1876. t^ 
 
 The Gonvito or Banquet is the work Convit 
 of Dante's manhood, as the Vifa Nuova 
 is the work of his youth. It consists, 
 in the form in which it has come down 
 to us, of an introduction and three 
 
58 DANTE, 
 
 treatises, each forming an elaborate 
 commentary on a long canzone. It was 
 intended, if completed, to have com- 
 prised commentaries on eleven more 
 canzoni, making fourteen in all, and in 
 this shape would have formed a tesoro 
 or handbook of universal knowledge 
 such as Brunetti Latini and others 
 have left to us. It is perhaps the least 
 known of Dante's Italian works; but 
 crabbed and unattractive as it is in 
 many parts, it is well worth reading, 
 and contains many passages of great 
 beauty and elevation. Indeed, a know- 
 ledge of it is indispensable to the full 
 understanding of the Divina Commedia. 
 The Convito or Convivio, as perhaps it 
 had better be called, was written be- 
 tween April, 1307, and May, 1809. It 
 
"-CONVITOP 59 
 
 was probably never completed because, 
 as we learn from the Divine Comedy, 
 Dante had found reason to doubt the 
 truth of much of the traditional scientific 
 knowledge of his time. The present 
 text is very corrupt. The Convito was 
 first printed in Florence by Buonacini 
 in 1490. The best editions of the 
 Convito are those of Fraticelli and 
 Giuliani. 
 
 Dante mentions in the Convito his ^^ Y^^' 
 
 gari 
 
 intention of writing a treatise di vol- ^^!^"*^^" 
 gave eloqiienzia. The present treatise 
 is noticed by Villani, Boccaccio, and 
 Bruni. Its object was, first, to establish 
 the Italian language as a literary tongue, 
 and to distinguish between the noble 
 speech which might become the property 
 of the whole nation, at once a bond of 
 
6o DANTE. 
 
 internal unity and a line of demarcation 
 against external nations ; and, secondly, 
 to lay down rules for poetical composi- 
 tion in tlie language so established. The 
 work was probably intended to be com- 
 pleted in four books, perhaps in five, 
 but only two are extant, and these not 
 complete. The work breaks off in the 
 middle of a sentence. The first of these 
 books deals with the various forms of 
 the Italian language, the second with 
 the style and with the composition of 
 the canzone. The work was not begun 
 till after 1309. There are three ancient 
 manuscripts of the treatise, the Trivul- 
 ziano of the fourteenth century; the 
 MS. of G-renoble, which dates from the 
 end of the fourteenth century, or a little 
 later; and the Vatican manuscript, which 
 
''DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA:' 6i 
 
 is a copy made in the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century of a manuscript in 
 the library of Lorenzo da Medici, duke 
 of Urbino. It was first printed in the 
 Italian yersion of Trissino at Vicenza 
 in 1529. The original Latin was first 
 published by Corbinelli at Paris in 1577. 
 By far the best account of the work is 
 that of Fr. d'Ovidio, included in his 
 Saggi Critici, Naples, 1878. 
 
 The Latin treatise De Monarchia, in -^^ 
 
 ' Mon- 
 
 three books, contains the creed of Dante's "^'^ ^'^'''' 
 Ghibelhnism. The authenticity of the 
 work is undoubted. Ifc is mentioned by 
 Yillani, Boccaccio, and Bruni as Dante's 
 work. In this treatise Dante propounds 
 the theory that the supremacy of the 
 emperor is derived from the supremacy 
 of the Roman people over the world, 
 
62 DANTE, 
 
 which was given to them directly from 
 God. As the emperor is intended to 
 insure their earthly happiness, so does 
 their spiritual welfare depend upon the 
 pope, to whom the emperor is to do 
 honour as to the firstborn of the Father. 
 The first book treats of the necessity of 
 monarchy ; in the second, he shows how 
 the Roman people acquires of right 
 the office of monarchy or of empire ; in 
 the third, how the office of the monarch 
 or the emperor depends immediately 
 upon Grod, and not upon the pope. He 
 argues that the ineffable providence of 
 Grod has proposed two ends to man, one 
 the happiness of this life, the other the 
 happiness of life eternal ; each of these 
 ends requires different means. At the 
 first we arrive by philosophical dis- 
 
''DE monarchia:' Ci 
 
 cipline; at the second by moral and 
 intellectual virtues, by the discipline of 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity. The duty 
 of controlling one of these means belongs 
 to the emperor, of controlling the other 
 to the pope. But the emperor must be 
 inspired by Him who sees all the dis- 
 position of the heavens. Grod above 
 elects, God above confirms, there being 
 no one superior to Him. Those who 
 are called electors are not really so, but 
 merely exponents of the Divine provi- 
 dence. Thus the authority of the 
 temporal monarch descends to him 
 directly and immediately from the foun- 
 tain of universal authority. Yet the 
 Roman emperor ought to treat the 
 pontiff with the respect which an eldest 
 son pays to his father, both of them 
 
64 DANTE, 
 
 being subject to the authority of God. 
 This early statement of the Divine right 
 of kings derived strength and confirma- 
 tion after the Reformation, when the 
 popes began to strain their power over 
 earthly sovereigns. The usual date 
 assigned to this work is the time of the 
 descent of Henry VII. into Italy, that 
 is, between 1310 and 1313. At the 
 same time many would place it before 
 Dante's exile. Scartazzini, after an 
 exhaustive examination of the question, 
 comes to the conclusion that it is impos- 
 sible to decide even approximately at 
 what time the book was written. 
 Eclogues. Boccaccio mentions in his Life of 
 Dante that he wrote two eclogues in 
 Latin in answer to Johannes de Virgilio, 
 who invited him to come from Eavenna 
 
ECLOGUES, 65 
 
 to Bologna and compose a great work 
 in the Latin language. The most in- 
 teresting passage in this work is that 
 in the first poem, where he expresses 
 the hope that when he has finished the 
 three parts of his great poem, his grey 
 hairs may be crowned with laurel on 
 the banks of the Arno. Although the 
 Latin of these poems is superior to that 
 of his prose works, we may feel thankful 
 that Dante composed the great work of 
 his life in his own vernacular. 
 
 Villani informs us that Dante, amongst Letten. 
 others, wrote three noble letters. One 
 he sent to the government of Florence, 
 lamenting that he had been exiled with- 
 out blame; another he wrote to the 
 emperor Henry YIL, when he was at 
 the siege of Brescia, reproving him for 
 
 <^^??^ 
 
 UNIVEESITI 
 
66 DANTE, 
 
 his sloth, and prophesying the future; 
 the third to the Itahan cardinals, when 
 the papal see was vacant, after the 
 death of Clement, that they might agree 
 in electing an Italian pope. These three 
 letters remain to us ; but where are the 
 others of which Yillani speaks. Is it 
 also certain that the three we possess 
 were really those written by Dante? 
 At the end of the last century the only 
 letters of Dante then known were a long 
 letter in Latin, addressed to Can Grande 
 della Scala, containing directions for 
 interpreting the Divina Gommedia, with 
 especial reference to the Paradiso, the 
 genuineness of which, although usually 
 admitted, is not absolutely certain ; and 
 the Italian version of the letters to the 
 princes and people of Italy and to Henry 
 
LETTERS, 67 
 
 YII. Dionisi published in 1810 a letter 
 of Dante to a Florentine friend. In 
 1827 Witte published the original Latin 
 of the letter to Henry YII. and to the 
 Italian cardinals, and the pretended 
 letter of Dante to Cino da Pistoia. 
 In 1837 Theodor Heyse discovered in 
 the Vatican Library a codex containing 
 the ten eclogues of Petrarch, the treatise 
 De Monarchia^ and nine Latin letters, 
 some of which bore the name of Dante. 
 They were as follows : (1) to. Henry 
 VII. ; (2) to the Florentines ; (3, 4, and 
 5) to Margaret of Brabant ; (6) to the 
 grandsons of Alessandro da Romena ; (7) 
 to Moroello Malaspina ; (8) to Cardinal 
 da Prato; (9) to the princes and lords 
 of Italy. Of these numbers 3, 4, and 
 5 are undoubtedly spurious; 6, 7, and 
 
68 DANTE, 
 
 8 are probably not genuine; 1 is cer- 
 tainly authentic ; 2 and 9 are possibly so. 
 The letter to a Florentine friend with 
 regard to Dante's return from exile is 
 generally regarded as genuine; but its 
 authenticity is doubted by Scartazzini. 
 DeAqua ^ little book of twentv-three paofes 
 
 ti Terra, *^ -^ o 
 
 was published at Venice in 1508 by 
 Manfredo da Monteferrato with the title 
 "Questio florentula ac perutilis de duo- 
 bus elementis Aquse et TerraD tractans 
 nuper reperta, qusB olim Mantuae auspi- 
 cata Veronae vero disputata et devisa, 
 ac manu propria scripta a Dante floren- 
 tino poeta clarissimo. Quae diligenter 
 et accurate correcta fuit per reveren- 
 dum magistrum Joannem Benedictum 
 Moncettum da Castilione Arretino, 
 Kegentem Patavinum, ordini Eremi- 
 
''DE AQUA ET TERR Ay 69 
 
 tarum Divi Augustini, sacraaque theo- 
 logiae doctorem excellentissimum." 
 Moncetti dedicated the book to Cardinal 
 Ippolito of Bste in a preface which 
 tells us that the original treatise of 
 Dante was corrected, polished, and com- 
 pleted before being published. It is 
 not therefore pretended that the work 
 as we have it is written by Dante. 
 The original manuscript is not forth- 
 coming, and the work is not mentioned 
 by any of Dante's biographers, even 
 by Filelfo. A distinguished geologist 
 Stoppani wrote an essay to show how 
 Dante in this work anticipated a 
 number of modern discoveries. (1) The 
 effect of the moon on the tides. (2) 
 The equality of the sea level. (3) The 
 centripetal force of gravity. (4) The 
 
70 DANTE. 
 
 sphericity of the earth. (5) The fact 
 that tracts of dry land are merely 
 excrescences of the earth's surface. (6) 
 The predominance of continents in the 
 Northern hemisphere. (7) The univer- 
 sality of the force of attraction. (8) The 
 elasticity of vapour as a motive power. 
 (9) The upheaval of continents. These 
 statements prove too much, for the above- 
 mentioned scientific facts, although un- 
 known in the time of Dante, had been 
 discovered before the publication of 
 Moncetti. There can be no doubt there- 
 fore that the treatise is spurious. Bruni 
 informs us that Dante wrote a beauti- 
 ful hand, and that the form of his letters 
 was long and thin. 
 mvina The first idea of the Commedia in 
 
 Gom- 
 
 media. Dautc's mind dates from his early years. 
 
''DIVINA COMMEDIAr 71 
 
 when his Beatrice was still living. We 
 see this from the canzone in § 19 of 
 the Vita Nuova, where the words "e 
 che dira nell' Inferno a malnati : lo 
 vidi la speranza de' beati " express an 
 intention of writing a work which shall 
 comprise a journey through Hell, if 
 not through Paradise. In the last 
 paragraph of the Vita Nuova he ex- 
 presses his determination not to speak 
 any more of Beatrice until he can treat 
 of her more worthily, and for that 
 purpose he devotes himself to intense 
 study. In the Convito he says very 
 little about her ; there can be no doubt, 
 therefore, that the Commedia is the 
 work promised in the last words of 
 the Vita Nuova. We have reason for 
 inferring that canto xix. of the Inferno 
 
72 DANTE. 
 
 was not written nntil after the death of 
 Clement V., which happened on April 
 20, 1314, and that the last cantos of 
 the Paradiso were only completed just 
 before the poet's death. We may 
 therefore place the composition of the 
 poem in the years which elapsed be- 
 tween the death of Henry VII. and the 
 death of Dante himself, that is, between 
 1313 and 1321. The letter to Frate 
 Ilario, which would imply that the poem 
 was almost finished in 1306, is now con- 
 sidered as spurious. It is of course 
 quite possible, as in Goethe's Faust, 
 that portions of the poem may have 
 been composed before the poet set 
 himself to its systematic creation. The 
 title given to his own poem by Dante is 
 Commedia; the epithet Divina appears 
 
SYMMETRY OF THE POEM. 73 
 
 for the first time on the title-page of 
 the edition of Dolce, published at Venice 
 by Giolito in 1555, Landino having 
 called Dante himself Divino in the 
 Florentine edition of 1481. 1 Nothing is ^ 
 more remarkable in the poem than the 
 symmetry of its construction. Its archi- 
 tecture is, so to speak, dominated by 
 the perfect number ten, and by the two 
 next most important numbers, three and 
 nine. The cantiche, or large divisions, 
 are three in number ; the terza rima in 
 which the poem is written is modelled 
 on the number three. If we consider 
 the first canto of the Inferno as a 
 general introduction, there remain 
 thirty-three cantos for each cantica, 
 the three elevated to the dignity of a 
 perfect number and multiplied by itself. 
 
74 DANTE. 
 
 The whole poem consists of a hundred 
 cantos, the perfect number multiplied 
 by itself. Each of the three king- 
 doms has nine regions : that is, the 
 Inferno has nine circles ; Purgatory, 
 an ante-Purgatory, seven circles, and 
 the earthly Paradise ; Paradise has nine 
 heavens. But the influence of the 
 perfect number is dominant through- 
 out. The nine circles of Hell are pre- 
 ceded by a vestibule, ante-Purgatory is 
 divided into three terraces. Purgatory, 
 therefore, contains in all ten circles. 
 Also there are three wild beasts which 
 oppose Dante in his ascent of the 
 mountain ; three blessed ladies who 
 take care of him in the court of 
 heaven ; three guides — Vergil, Beatrice, 
 and St. Bernard. Lucifer has three 
 
SCULPTURESQUE IN FORM, 75 
 
 faces ; three flames have their hearts 
 on fire ; there are three infernal furies 
 stained with blood. It is also worthy 
 of remark that the Gommedia consists 
 of 14,233 lines, which, if equally divided 
 between the three cantiche, would give 
 4,744 for each. But the Inferno has only 
 4,720, the Purgatorio 4,755, and the Para- 
 diso 4,758 lines. Indeed Dante tells us 
 that the reason why he does not tell us 
 any more about Purgatory is that all 
 the leaves assigned to the second cantica 
 are full. )There can be no stronger \ 
 proof of the sculpturesque accuracy with 
 which the whole work was composed/] 
 For the imderstanding of the Divine 
 poem, it is necessary to give some 
 account of the universe as Dante con- 
 ceived it. As Lucifer fell from Heaven, 
 
76 DANTE, 
 
 the earth and the waters fled with horror 
 at his approach. The earth as it 
 shrank left a deep conical cavity, the 
 pit of Hell ; the waters collected on the 
 other side of the earth, surrounding 
 the island-moiintain of Purgatory, 
 formed by the Earth driven out by 
 the fall of Lucifer. The pit of Hell 
 lies just under Jerusalem ; and the 
 mountain of Purgatory, with the garden 
 of the earthly Paradise at its summit, 
 forms the antipodes of the Holy City. 
 Lucifer lies entombed in the very centre 
 of the Earth. The spheres of Paradise 
 are inclosed in each other like the coats 
 of an onion, surrounding the Earth, 
 which is in their centre. They are ten 
 in number ; the heavens respectively 
 of the Moon, of Mercury, of Venus, 
 
DANTE'S UNIVERSE, jj 
 
 of the Sun, of Mars, of Jupiter, of 
 Saturn, of the Fixed Stars. The ninth 
 is the Crystalline or transparent heaven, 
 the existence of which is only apparent 
 by the moyement which it receives. 
 Outside all these is the Empyrean, 
 the home of Grod Himself and of the 
 blessed spirits who are admitted ijo it. 
 As the poet rises from sphere to sphere 
 the forms of the blessed appear to him 
 in each according to their several 
 qualities, although the home of all of 
 them is in the highest. 
 
 Let us briefly trace the passage of the Heii. 
 poet through these three kingdoms. At 
 the opening of the poem Dante awakes 
 from slumber, and finds that he has lost 
 his way in a dark and tangled wood. 
 When he comes out of it, he begins to 
 
78 DANTE. 
 
 ascend a hill, illuminated by the rays of 
 the sun; but he is prevented by three 
 wild beasts — a panther, a lion, and a 
 wolf. The poet Vergil now appears to 
 him, and offers to guide him through 
 Hell and Purgatory, as far as the 
 earthly Paradise. Dante doubts whether 
 he is fit to undertake such a journey, 
 but Yergil comforts him, and announces 
 to him that the Holy Virgin, Saint 
 Lucy, and Beatrice have care of him, 
 and that Beatrice has sent Vergil to 
 conduct him. Dante at last consents. 
 Thus is the first day spent — Palm 
 Sunday of the year 1300. The Gate 
 of Hell now appears before them, with 
 its terrible inscription. They enter, 
 and hear a confused sound of sighs, 
 groans, and beatings of hands. They 
 
HELL. 79 
 
 first meet the cowards, who did neither 
 good nor harm in life, tormented by- 
 insects, and running after a banner. 
 They arrive at the shore of Acheron. 
 Charon refuses to ferry across a living 
 soul. He is transported in a mysterious 
 manner whilst asleep, and, waking up, 
 finds himself in Limbo, where are those 
 whji died without baptism and without 
 faith, — the heroes, the philosophers, and 
 the great poets of antiquity. From 
 this point they descend into the dark- 
 ness. At the entrance of the second 
 circle stands Minos, who declares the 
 sentence of the damned by the lashing 
 of his tail around his body. In this 
 circle are the self-indulgent, who are 
 borne along by a ceaseless wind. 
 Among them is Francesca da Rimini, 
 
So DANTE, 
 
 who tells the sad story of her love. 
 Dante falls into a swoon for pity of her, 
 and, waking up, finds himself in the third 
 circle, — that of the gluttons, guarded by 
 the dread Cerberus. Here they meet 
 Ciacco, who predicts to Dante his exile 
 from his country. Pluto, guardian of 
 the circle of the misers and the spend- 
 thrifts, howls in an awful manner, and 
 pronounces unintelligible sounds. Next^ 
 is the marshy Styx, where the travellers^ 
 see the punishment of the wrathful. 
 The gates of the city of Dis are guarded 
 by demons and fiends, who try to pre- 
 vent their passage. They are admitted 
 by the aid of a messenger from Heaven. 
 Inside they find themselves in a vast 
 cemetery. Heresiarchs and heretics lie 
 in sepulchres of red-hot iron ; among 
 
HERESIARCHS AND TYRANTS, 8i 
 
 them the emperor Frederick 11., a pope, 
 a cardinal, Farinata degli Uberti, who 
 
 prevented the destruction oT Florence, "> 
 and Cavalcante Cavalcanti, who laments 
 the death of his son JJuido. After this, 
 by a precipitous route, they reach the / Y^ 
 circle of the violent, guarded by the 
 Minotaurs. Tyrants and homicides, 
 among them Ezzelino, Qbizzo da Este, 
 and Guy de Montfort, are plunged in 
 a river of boiling blood. The trees of 
 a fetid wood, in which Harpies nestle, 
 are found to be the bodies of suicides. 
 
 Here is the unhappy Pier della Vigne. ..^ 
 
 ■ \f li\ 
 
 In the third division of the s eventh L,^....,,^ 
 
 circle, Capaneus lies on his back under 
 
 a rain of fire, and still hurls defiance at 
 
 Jupiter. They now arrive at Phlege- < (^ 
 
 thon, and meet those guilty of the sin 7--^ 
 
 G 
 
82 DANTE. 
 
 of Sodom, — among tliem clerics and men 
 of letters, including Brunetto Latini, 
 the preceptor of the poet. At the point 
 where Phlegethon falls into a great 
 abyss, Dante unties a mystic cord 
 which he had round his wrist, and 
 letting it down, Vergil gives a sign to 
 Greryon, a strange monster, who comes 
 up to take the two poets on his back, 
 /'' and to convey them to the eighth circle, 
 called Malebolge, because it is divided 
 into^^ten pits or holgie. In these pits., 
 sedroers are scourged by devils; flaV 
 terers are smothered in dung; simo- 
 ^mcs are fixed head downwards in a 
 hole, while their feet are burnt with 
 flame. Here Pope Nicholas III. awaits 
 his successors Boniface YIII. and 
 Clement V. In the TOurth pit sooth- 
 
 \,^ 
 
MALEBOLGE, 83 
 
 sayers have their fapes turned round to 
 their backs ; in the fifth, fraudulent mer- 
 chants stand in a lake of boiling pitch. 
 In the sixth, hypocrites are condemned 
 to wear a heavy mantle of gilded lead. 
 In the ninth pit we find Mahomet split 
 into two from his chin to his trunk ; 
 Bertram de Born carrying his head in 
 his hands ; Greri del Bello, Dante's kins- 
 man, his violent death not yet avenged. 
 The ninth circle is represented as a 
 huge well, from which the forms of 
 giants rise like towers. Antaeus takes 
 the two poets in the palms of his hands 
 and places them in the bottom. Here 
 the betrayers of their relations, of their 
 country, of their friends, and of huma- 
 nity, are fixed in a frozen lake, some 
 at a greater, some at a lesser depth. 
 
84 DANTE. 
 
 according to the enormity of their 
 offence. Here lies the unhappy Ugo- 
 lino della Grheradesca, whose piteous 
 story has resounded through the world. 
 In the very centre of the earth is found 
 the monstrous body of Lucifer, whose 
 triple mouth holds the three typical 
 traitors of the world — Judas, who be- 
 trayed Christ; Brutus and Cassius, who 
 betrayed Caesar. Dante now ties him- 
 self to Vergil's neck, and they climb 
 together down the hairy sides of Luci- 
 fer, till they reach the central point of 
 the universe. They then issue through 
 the rent made by the fall of the rebel 
 angel, and see the stars once more. 
 Their passage through the circles of 
 Hell has occupied two days — Monday 
 and Tuesday in Holy Week. 
 
PURGATORY. "85 
 
 The travellers now arrived at the moun- Purgatory, 
 tain of purification. They are welcomed 
 by the Four Stars of the Southern Cross, 
 never seen before save by first-created 
 man. Cato stands as guardian of Pur- 
 gatory. Dante, by the command of 
 Cato, first purifies himself from the 
 filth of Hell, and then proceeds to 
 ascend the holy mountain. In Hell the 
 descent had become more difficult as 
 they went lower down ; in Purgatory 
 the mountain becomes gradually more 
 easy to scale. Whilst the poets are 
 thus standing on the shore, a boat 
 approaches, impelled by the outspread 
 wings of an angel at the stern, full 
 of spirits, who come to be purified. 
 Among them is the poet Casella, who 
 addresses Dante in one of his own 
 
86- DANTE, 
 
 poems. In the ante-Purgatory they 
 meet king Manfred, who relates the 
 tragic story of his death ; the slothful 
 Belacqua; Buonconte da Montefeltro; 
 and Pia de' Tolomei, the heroine of 
 painters and musicians ; Sordello, the 
 poet of Mantua, standing like a couch- 
 ing lion; and others who had deferred 
 repentance till the day of their death. 
 At night-fall the poet sleeps ; St. Lucy 
 raises him, still in slumber, and places 
 him at the gate of St. Peter. Here an 
 angel carves on his forehead seven P's 
 with the point of his sword. He then 
 opens the gate, and the two poets enter 
 upon the true Purgatory. The mountain 
 is surrounded by concentric terraces. 
 On the first are the proud, weighed down 
 by enormous weights. Among them are 
 
THE TERRACES, 87 
 
 Oderisi da Gubbio, the illuminator of 
 manuscripts, and the haughty Proven- 
 zan Salyani. On the second terrace 
 are the victims of envy, seated and 
 clothed in dresses of hair-cloth, their 
 eyes sealed by a thread of steel. Secret 
 voices chant examples of humility, and 
 of envy punished. On the third terrace 
 stand the wrathful enveloped in a thick 
 and pungent smoke. They see in 
 visions examples of holy love and 
 disastrous anger. The indifferent, of 
 the fourth terrace, run in great haste. 
 The misers of the fifth lie grovelling 
 on the ground. Among them are Pope 
 Hadrian Y., Hugh Capet, Charles of 
 Yalois, and Philip le Bel. An earth- 
 quake announces that a soul has com- 
 pleted its term of purification. When 
 
SS DANTE. 
 
 the soul appears, it is found to be Sta- 
 tius, who, from that moment, accom- 
 panies the poets. At the entrance to 
 the sixth terrace is seen a mystic tree, 
 and voices are heard uttering examples 
 of temperance. Here are the gluttons, 
 now horribly lean, desiring the food and 
 drink which are denied to them. The 
 last terrace contains the luxurious, or 
 self-indulgent, who wander about sing- 
 ing in a sea of fire. Among them are 
 Gruido Guinicelli and Arnaldo Daniello. 
 The poets are also compelled to pass 
 through the fire. Dante hesitates ; but 
 Vergil reassures him, and at the sound 
 of the name of Beatrice he throws him- 
 self into the flame, crosses it, and finds 
 that the seven P's on his brow are 
 obliterated. Yergil declares that he can 
 
EARTHLY PARADISE, 89 
 
 no longer act as guide, and suddenly 
 disappears. Dante is now on the verge 
 of the terrestrial Paradise. He sees 
 Matilda on the other side of a stream, 
 singing and gathering flowers. Here a 
 magnificent vision meets his gaze, which 
 represents the fortune of the Church, 
 from its foundation to the transference 
 of the papal see to Avignon. Beatrice 
 now appears to him. He drinks of the 
 waters of Lethe and of Eunoe, and 
 feels himself purified, and ready to 
 mount upwards to the stars. 
 
 Beatrice fixes her eyes upon the sun, Paradise 
 Dante his eyes on those of Beatrice. 
 They pass through the sphere of fire 
 and reach that of the moon. Here 
 appear to them the spirits who have 
 proved false to their vows. Then, quick , 
 
90 DANTE. 
 
 as lightning, they ascend to the heaven 
 of Mercury ; at each ascent Beatrice, 
 already divinely fair, becomes more 
 beautiful, more brilliant, more smiling. 
 In Mercury are seen the souls of those 
 who worked hard for the desire of 
 honour. The emperor Justinian is 
 taken as their type. In the heaven of 
 Venus Charles Martel shows himself 
 among the spirits of love. In the 
 heaven of the Sun the spirits of wisdom 
 are manifest, seen not by their colour, 
 but by their more brilliant light. 
 Thomas Aquinas relates the life of St. 
 Francis of Assisi, Bonaventura that of 
 St. Dominic. In Mars the militant 
 spirits show themselves in the form of 
 a dazzling cross. Here Cacciaguida, 
 Dante's ancestor, speaks to the poet 
 
THE SPHERES. 91 
 
 of himself and his exploits, and an- 
 nounces the future glory of the poet, 
 his descendant. In Jupiter the spirits 
 who loved justice upon earth arrange 
 themselves in the form of an eagle, 
 the imperial ensign. The heaven of 
 Saturn is assigned to the contem- 
 plative spirits, and Jacob's ladder 
 appears leading mysteriously to heaven. 
 Among them are Pier Damiano and St. 
 Benedict. After this Dante rises to the 
 heaven of the fixed stars in the con- 
 stellation of the Twins, under which he 
 was born. Strengthened by Beatrice, he 
 turns his eyes to the universe which he 
 has left beneath him, and especially to 
 the tiny earth of which we are so proud. 
 The triumph of Christ is described and 
 the coronation of the Virgin. St. Peter 
 
92 DANTE, 
 
 examines Dante in faitli, St. James in 
 hope, and St. John in love, while the 
 whole of Paradise resounds with a 
 hymn of glory to the Holy Trinity. 
 Dante and Beatrice now ascend to the 
 crystalline heaven or the Primum Mobile. 
 Dante sees the nine choirs of angels 
 which circle in inverse order round a 
 radiant point of light, the choir nearest 
 to the point being the quickest, that 
 most distant from it the slowest. Then 
 follows the empyrean, in which there is 
 neither time nor motion, but only light, 
 love, and joy. In the heavenly Rose 
 Dante sees the seat destined for Henry 
 VII. Beatrice leaves her faithful lover 
 and returns to her own seat in the third 
 circle. St. Bernard takes her place, and 
 guides Dante to the ultimate end of 
 
THE BEATIFIC VISION, 93 
 
 man, — that is, the perfect happiness 
 
 which consists in the vision of the 
 
 divinity. He shows him Mary the Queen 
 
 of Heaven, together with Gabriel, 
 
 Adam, Moses, Peter, John, and other 
 
 heroes of the faith. After a sublime 
 
 prayer, Dante is permitted to gaze on 
 
 the sublime mysteries of salvation, the 
 
 Trinity, and the union of the Divine 
 
 and human natures in Christ. 
 
 Dante died September 14, 1321, and Biblio- 
 graphy. 
 
 the first finished edition of the Divine 
 Comedy was published in 1472. There- 
 fore for a hundred and fifty years this 
 immortal work was made known by 
 means of manuscripts, of which more 
 than five hundred are known to exist. 
 Attempts have been made by Tauber 
 and by Mr. Edward Moore to divide 
 
94 DANTE, 
 
 them into families with considerable 
 success. In this way Tauber has 
 arranged three hundred and ninety 
 manuscripts into seventeen categories. 
 The recovery of Dante's original manu- 
 script is perhaps not altogether hope- 
 less. In the course of the last four 
 hundred years about three hundred 
 and fifty editions of Dante have, been 
 published, of which fifteen appeared 
 in the fifteenth century, thirty in the 
 sixteenth, three in the seventeenth, 
 thirty-one in the eighteenth, and the 
 rest in the nineteenth. The editions of 
 the fifteenth century probably repro- 
 duce more or less faithfully some 
 particular codex. The foundation of 
 all later editions is the Aldine of 1502, 
 printed from a manuscript belonging to 
 
EDITIONS OF DANTE. 95 
 
 Cardinal Bembo. The edition of Delia 
 Crusca, edited by Bastiano dei Reni 
 in 1595, introduced about six hundred 
 and fifty changes, mostly arbitrary, 
 into the Aldine text, and has been 
 frequently reprinted. Yolpi, in his 
 edition called the Gomiiiiana, published 
 at Padua in 1726-27, corrected many 
 errors and added some useful indices, 
 and a similar text was undertaken by 
 the Four Florentines in 1837, among 
 whom was Grino Capponi. The first 
 really critical edition of the Gommedia, 
 is that of Karl Witte, published at 
 Berlin 1862. It is based on the 
 authority of four manuscripts, those of 
 Santa Croce, of the Vatican, of Berlin, 
 and of the Caetani family, the readings 
 of which are registered with great 
 
96 DANTE, 
 
 accuracy, as are also those of the Aldine 
 della Cruscan and Four Florentine 
 editions. No reading is admitted into 
 the text which is not supported by the 
 authority of at least one of these manu- 
 scripts. Besides these we may mention 
 the reprint of four primitive editions 
 of the Commedia, those of Jesi Foligno, 
 Mantua and Naples, published by Lord 
 Vernon in 1858, the first Florentine 
 edition of Landino, 1481, with engrav- 
 ings taken from Botticelli's drawings 
 and the Paduan edition of 1822, in five 
 volumes, reprinted in one volume at 
 Prato in 1847-52. 
 
 Dante died at the age of fifty-six. 
 Scartazzini remarks that if he had 
 lived twenty years longer he would 
 have probably written his own commen- 
 
COMMENTARIES. 97 
 
 tary on the Gommedia, which would 
 have made others almost superfluous. 
 As it is, we possess a number of com- 
 mentaries written, if not during the 
 poet's life, at least immediately after 
 his death. Perhaps the oldest is the 
 anonymous commentary published by 
 Selmi at Turin, in 1865. Selmi believes 
 that the notes were written either in 
 the year of Dante's death or a year 
 later. The writer belonged to the fac- 
 tion of the Neri ; he does not therefore 
 show himself particularly friendly either 
 to Dante or to the sentiments he ex- 
 presses. His historical and exegetical 
 authority is very small. 
 
 The anonymous commentary pub- 
 lished by Lord Yernon at Florence, in 
 1848, is a translation of the Latin notes 
 
 H 
 
98 DANTE, 
 
 of Ser Graziulo de' Bambagiuoli, written 
 in 1324. This commentary contains 
 some historical notices of importance. 
 The commentary attributed to Jacopo, 
 the son of Dante (Florence, 1848), was 
 written in 1323 or 1324, and is attested 
 *' lo Jacopo, figliuolo di Dante " ; it 
 has very little value. The commen- 
 tary of Jacopo della Lana, of Bologna, 
 written between 1321 and 1328, is of 
 very great importance. It exists in 
 forty-two manuscripts, and was the first 
 commentary that was printed, as it 
 occurs both in the edition of Vindolin 
 of Paris, in 1477, and in that of Mdo- 
 beata, at Milan, in 1477-78. It may be 
 regarded as the father of all Dante 
 commentaries. 
 
 Another commentary which, from its 
 
''OTTIMO'' COMMENTO. 99 
 
 great reputation, received the name of 
 Ottimo^ or the very best, was written 
 probably by Andrea Lancia, a notary 
 of Florence, about the year 1334. The 
 author mentions his personal relations 
 with Dante, and states that he had 
 asked his advice about the meaning of 
 certain verses. Scartazzini remarks 
 that the commentator evidently wearied 
 of his task before he reached the end 
 of it. The notes to the Inferno were 
 written almost entirely by himself; in 
 those on the Purgatory he copies Delia 
 Lana freely, and in the Paradise has 
 very little of his own. The historical 
 notes of these two commentators are 
 especially important. The Ottimo com- 
 mentary was first published by Ales- 
 sandro Torri, at Pisa, in 1827-29. 
 
loo DANTE. 
 
 Anotlier very important commentary 
 is that of Pietro, the son of Dante, 
 written in 1340. The principal value 
 lies in its theological and scholastic 
 erudition. It was first published at the 
 expense of Lord Vernon at Florence, 
 in 1845. In 1373, the Florentines 
 established a chair for public lectures 
 on the text of Dante, and appointed 
 to it Giovanni Boccaccio, the famous 
 novelist, then in advanced years. He 
 did not continue his commentary be- 
 yond canto xvi. of the Inferno, Scar- 
 tazzini says that Boccaccio took as his 
 model Dante's own commentary on the 
 Convito. The commentary of Boccaccio 
 was first printed at Naples in 1724. 
 The most voluminous and historically 
 the most important early commentator on 
 
BENVENUTO DA IMOLA. loi 
 
 Dante is Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola. 
 It was written in Latin in 1379. The 
 author probably attended the lectures 
 of Boccaccio at Florence, and in 1375 
 expounded the Gommedia at Bologne: 
 Muratori made copious extracts from 
 this commentary in the first volume of 
 his Antiqiiitates Italicce, but the work 
 was not published until 1887, when it 
 saw the light at Florence under the 
 editorship of Sir James Lacaita, and at 
 the expense of William Warren Yernon. 
 The last of the commentators of the 
 fourteenth century is Dianesso da Buti, 
 who was born in 1324 near Pisa, and died 
 at Pisa in 1406. He lectured on the 
 Gommedia in the University of Pisa. 
 Buti applied his attention especially to 
 questions of grammar. This commen- 
 
I02 DANTE, 
 
 tary was published at Pisa by Crescentino 
 Giannini in 1858-62. The commen- 
 tary of the Anonimo Fiorentino, which 
 dates from the end of the fourteenth 
 to the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, is said by Scartazzini to contain 
 very little that is original. It is obvious 
 that the most important of these ancient 
 commentaries are those of Jacopo dell a 
 Lana, Pietro di Dante, Boccaccio, Ben- 
 venuto de Imola, and Buti. 
 
 Passing to later times, the commen- 
 tary of Lambino, published at Florence 
 in 1482, is of great value. Amongst 
 modern commentaries, that of Scar- 
 tazzini, published by Brockhaus of 
 Leipzig, with a fourth volume of 
 Prolegomeni, is by far the best. The 
 translations of king John of Saxony, 
 
TRANSLATIONS, 103 
 
 under the name of Philalethes, and of 
 Karl Witte also contain admirable 
 notes. We should also mention the 
 special dictionaries of Blanc, Bocci and 
 Poletto, and the concordance of L. A. 
 Fay. 
 
 Dante has been translated into almost 
 all modern languages ; the earliest ver- 
 sions are probably those into Provencal, 
 several of which exist in manuscript, 
 but have never been published. The 
 principal translations in English are 
 those of Gary (1806); F. Pollock; 
 J. A. Carlyle, of the Inferno^ only into 
 prose, 1849 ; Longfellow, 1867 ; and 
 Butler of the Purgatory and Paradise. 
 The most widely read translation is 
 that of Longfellow, and it perhaps gives 
 the best idea of the original. The 
 
I04 
 
 DANTE, 
 
 I 
 
 / 
 
 notes also are extremely good. The 
 best German translation — indeed indis- 
 pensable to the student on account of 
 its admirable notes — is that of Phila- 
 lethes mentioned above. The transla- 
 tion of Musurus into modern Grreek is 
 also worthy of especial commendation. 
 
 Of THE ^ 
 
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