Ravenna
CATHERINE MARY PHILLIMCTi
"A
■/_.
\DM
Ill/,
DANTE AT RAVENNA.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2008 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/danteatravennastOOphil
DANTE ALIGHIERI.
Frontispiece-
DANTE AT RAVENNA
B StU^V
BY
CATHERINE MARY PHILLIMORE,
AUTHOR OF
'studies in ITALIAN LITERATURE,' ' THE WARRIOR MEDICI,' ' FRA ANGELICO,'
'selections from the sermons of padre AGOSTINO DA
MONTEFELTRO,' ETC., ETC.
i
LONDON
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1898.
M. F. S. H.,
WHO ACCOMPANIED THE WRITER
THREE TIMES TO RAVENNA,
THE COMPANION OF MANY STUDIES, RESEARCHES AND TRAVELS,
THESE PAGES
ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
' E quasi amici dipartirsi pigri.'
Piirg., xxxiii. 114.
PREFACE
THE following brief study of the closing years
of the life of Dante is offered as a humble
contribution to the mass of literature and
research which centres in that great name.
Yet in his quiet exile at Ravenna Dante is
perhaps not so well known to the student of his
life and works as when a citi2en of Florence in
the early and more stirring periods of his life.
But many a passage, both in the ' Divina Com-
media ' and in his minor works, tends to show
how much his mind was influenced by the place
of his latest sojourn upon earth.
Frequent visits to the Romagna and Ravenna
have enabled the writer, while following in his
footsteps, to form some idea of the charm which
that part of Italy, aad the ancient city itself, must
have held for the poet.
viii Preface
Upon the last great Italian work, ' L' Ultimo
Rifugio di Dante Alighieri,'^ which leaves no part
of the topography or history connected with that
period unexplained or unexplored, the following
study relies mainly for its facts. A similar ac-
knowledgment is due to another work, of equal
importance, though not so recent, ' Dante e il
suo Secolo.'
The study of these works has been supplemented
by research among such original sources of in-
formation as are to be found in the manuscripts
contained in the libraries of Ravenna and Paris,
the Bodleian, and the British Museum.
The writer, aware that many points still under
dispute have come within the sphere of her labours,
is prepared to await, with others, the resifting of
all the documents relative to the life and family
of Dante in the * Codice Diplomatico Dantesco,'
compiled by the Italian literary authorities, and
which last year began to issue in parts from the
Italian press. In view of either the ready accept-
ance of tradition or the negative spirit of modern
criticism, the object of this work is to lay a
foundation upon which the biography of Dante
may securely rest.
' ' L' Ultimo Rifugio di Dante Alighieri.' Corrado Ricci, 1891.
Preface
IX
' It is time ' (such is the prelude of the compilers of the
work) ' that under the escort of approved teachers, and
following in their steps, the student of Dante should be
set in a way from which there is no turning back nor
divergence — on the one hand into vague affirmation, on
the other into systematic doubt. Such a safe path can
only be secured by a careful restatement of facts, and
this course of study may be reached from three starting-
points :
' I. Renewed attention to the references scattered
throughout the works of the poet himself.
* 2. The re-investigation of the traditional information
supplied by the most reliable of the ancient biographers.
' 3. The re-examination of the original documents
with which history has from time to time been enriched.
A comparison of these last with those cited by the early
biographers will show how much is still extant of the
original sources of their information. When such docu-
ments are lacking, the testimonies of the various early
writers will be quoted, and criticism will determine their
respective merit according as they can be proved to have
written independently of each other. '^
Such labours as these can hardly miss their
mark, and although, in his greatness, Dante may
' ' Codice Diplomatico Dantesco : I Documenti della Vita e
della Famiglia di Dante Alighieri, riprodotti in facsnnile, descritti
e illustrati con Monumenti d' Arte, e Figure da Guido Biagi e da
G. L. I'asserini con gli auspici della Sociela Danlesca Ilaliana.'
X Preface
be looked upon as a citizen of the world, all
nations will naturally turn to the land of his birth
for the final verdict upon all matters connected
with his life and works.
Catherine Makv Phillimore.
London,
February, 1898.
CONTEiNTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION ----- i
I. RAVENNA - - - - - 13
II. THE EAGLE OF POLENTA, THE TYRANTS OF
THE ROMAGNA, AND THE POPES CONTEM-
PORARY WITH DANTE - - "19
III. DANTE A TEACHER OF RHETORIC IN RAVENNA,
AND ' IL VOLGARE ELOQUIO ' - " 4I
IV. LIFE AND PUPILS AT RAVENNA - - 83
V. CLOSING YEARS OF THE LIFE OF DANTE AT
RAVENNA - - - - - 121
VI. THE PINETA — KMTIASSY TO VENICE — DEATH
AND BURIAL - - - - "147
VII. THE TOMB OF DANTE, AND THE DISCOVERY
OF HIS REMAINS - - - 167
INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
' Avvegna ch'io mi senta
Ben tetragono ai colpi di ventura.'
Par., xvii. 24.
• Though L feel me on all sides
Well squared to fortune's blows.'
IT is probable that the close and persistent
study of Dante will be hereafter recognised
as one of the prominent features of the nine-
teenth century, whether it is viewed as an anomaly
when set side by side with the prevailing charac-
teristics of the age, or whether it is recognised as
a natural reaction from the purely material aims
of the latest developments of science. From such
aims as these, with all the respect due to the
marvellous results which have been achieved, it
is yet conceivable that the mind, restless with
some unsatisfied instinct, should cast a backward
glance over those forgotten paths of learning
which converge and centre in their great exponent,
Dante, and were reduced by him into the one
simple instruction,
' Come I'uom s'eterna.
Dante at Ravenna
In reality, these three words contain at once
the subject of Dante's great work and the object
for which it was written. The subject, * the con-
dition of the soul after death'; the object, 'to
rescue men from passing their Hves in a state
of misery, and to direct them in the way of happi-
ness.'
It would almost seem as if in this statement,
brief to simplicity, lay the clue to the marvellous
influence which the ' Divina Commedia,' ever since
it was first penned, has exercised upon the human
mind. A little more reflection and the marvel is
dispelled, or, rather, resolved into the natural
sequence of cause and effect.
Dante was no egotist. Doubtless there floated
ever before his mind, throughout his solitary
wanderings, the hope that an ungrateful but still
ever-loved country would at last recognise his
merit, and ' at the font of his baptism '^ place the
coveted laurels upon his head ; but this was not
the primary motive of his work, nor was that
work confined to his own country or to his own
time.
Nothing less than the benefit of all who should
ever live upon this earth was the design of the
writer ; therefore, in all countries, without respect
to nationality, and, we may now add, in either
hemisphere, each succeeding age has claimed a
* ' In sul fonte
Del mio Battesimo prendero '1 cappello.'
Par., XXV. lo.
Introduction
share in the great inheritance, each has vied with
the other in the appreciation of a work which,
while it remains the glory of Italy, was not destined
to be her inheritance alone ; each in turn has paid
its own tribute to the master-mind which compre-
hended them all, till six centuries have raised a
trophy of homage, rarely equalled in the annals of
literature, to his name.
From the earliest moment of the existence of
the * Divina Commedia,' when Giotto, under the
direct guidance of the author, gave to art the first
rendering of the scheme of the poem on the west
wall of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, the student
has been able to trace with more or less accuracy
the remarkable journey through those imagined
spheres which, on account of the splendour of their
conception and their precision of detail, have un-
consciously supplied for all time a description of
the unseen world.
But the study of the present century, not con-
tent with soaring after him in spirit, has concen-
trated itself upon tracing every footstep which he
made 'in the body in which I cast a shade. '^
The great talent of Mr. Gladstone has mar-
shalled the evidence in favour of Dante's visit to
Oxford,- and another fruit of diligent research has
appeared in a map of Italy'^ which indicates every
' ' r corpo, dentro al quale io facev' ombra.'
Pttr^'., iii. 26.
* Nineteenth Century, June, 1892.
' Dante map, hy Mary Ilensman. Published by Messrs, Nutt,
270, Strand, London, W.C.
Dante at Ravenna
spot visited by Dante during his nineteen years of
wanderings, till at last he reached the goal of his
earthly pilgrimage in Ravenna.
Nowhere could the last footprints of that most
remarkable race of life have been more fitly placed
than in Ravenna, where the old Roman Empire
and the new kingdom of Christianity met, not in
opposition, but in harmony. At Ravenna, more,
perhaps, than any other spot in the vast world of
Rome, the Empire remains indelibly stamped with
the sign of Constantine, in the unique glory of
basilicas, where the shimmering mosaics, almost
as changeless as the stars of heaven, remain as
silent witnesses to the fact that there at least the
Empire brought with no grudging hand riches and
honour to the foot of that Cross in whose might
alone, at one crisis of her existence, she had con-
quered.
To whom could the task of an exponent of the
process which had blended into one the two forces
of the world be more fitly entrusted than to Dante,
and where could he find a grander setting for the
completion of the scheme which had occupied his
great soul than in Ravenna ?
Contemporary history, corroborated by recent
research, fixes the epoch of his arrival in Ravenna
within a few years of the death of Henry of
Luxemburg, in the month of August, 1313. It
will be remembered that the sudden death of the
Emperor, midway in his career of the conquest of
Italy, was likewise the death-blow of the Ghibel-
Introduction
line hopes, then within an ace of their culmina-
tion. Some idea of what that blow must have
been to Dante, the prime mover of the Ghibelline
party, who had strained every power of his intel-
lect to secure the triumph of the Emperor, may
be gathered from the impassioned eloquence of his
previous appeal :
'To all and singular — Princes of Italy, Senators of
the Holy City, to every Duke, Marquis, Count, and all
the people — I, the humble Italian Dante Alighieri, a
Florentine unjustly exiled, send greeting. Behold now
is the accepted time, when the signs of consolation and
peace are becoming manifest. . . .
' Rejoice, O Italy, once fit to be the scorn and pity
of the Saracens, but now shortly to become the most
envied of all nations for thy Bridegroom, who is the light
and joy of his century and the glory of thy people, the
most gracious Henry — Imperial Caesar and Augustus
hastens to make thee his spouse.
' Dry thy tears, O beautiful Italy ! Cast away every
vestige of grief because he is at hand who will deliver
thee from the bonds of thy tormentors, who will strike
those murderers, and, destroying them with the edge of
the sword, will let out this vineyard to other husbandmen
who will render to him the just fruit in due season,'
etc.^
In a similar strain another letter was addressed
to the Emperor himself, written in the actual
neighbourhood of Florence, which the hungering
' Opere Minori (Epist. v. Fraticelli), vol. iii., p. 441.
8 Dante at Ravenna
exile, stimulated by the hope that the end of his
banishment was near, had also approached.
In proportion to such high hopes must have
been the depth of disappointment in which Dante
was obliged to turn away from the 'fair sheep-
fold,'^ and renew his wandering till at last he took
refuge in Ravenna, there to find his chief solace in
preparing a throne for the dead Emperor in his
' Paradiso,' before which all earthly splendour
would fade into insignificance.^
Many and fruitless have been the disputes and
discussions as to the exact year which, taking the
death of the Emperor in 1313 as a starting-point,
witnessed the arrival of Dante in Ravenna. It is
not surprising, if we consider the many wander-
ings of his exiled footsteps, some traced with
tolerable certainty, some more faintly indicated
by tradition, that almost a literature should centre
round this question among the eager biographers
of the poet. But that he came there at the
request of Guido Novello, as his invited guest,
all are agreed. That being the case, he could
not arrive there before Guido came into power,
the more so as the immediate predecessors of
Guido, Bernardino and Lamberto, were earnest
Guelphs, striving for the Papal as opposed to the
Imperial cause ; Bernardino, by whose side Dante
had fought at Campaldino, being at that time the
^ ' Del bello ovile, ov'io dormic agnello.'
Par., XXV. 5.
' ' Par.,' XXX. 133-139.
Introduction
Podesta of Florence, urging the Florentines to
resist to the last, and dying in office while the
Emperor was at Pisa waiting his opportunity to
enter Florence. From this it may safely be
assumed that Dante would not select the Court of
Bernardino as his refuge in exile. But Guido
Novello was still in his first youth, and although
his name appears in the early chronicles of
Ravenna as the defender of mercantile rights of
the city in various disputes with Venice, Chioggia,
and Comacchio, he had hitherto kept himself
aloof from the great conflict of the age. His
disposition was gentle and peaceful, his mind
wholly given to study. What little record exists
of his life coincides exactly with the portrait left
to us by Boccaccio.
' In those days there reigned over Ravenna, a
famous and ancient city of the Romagna, a noble knight
called Guido da Polenta, who was instructed in all
the liberal arts, who was wont greatly to honour all
learned men, especially those who surpassed all others in
science.
' It having reached his ears that Dante (with whose
fame he had long been acquainted) was, in this his
moment of utmost despair, now in Romagna, he at once
prepared to receive and honour him ; nor did he wait to
be asked to do so, but with true liberality taking into
consideration how hardly a high soul will stoop to ask,
he implored him to come to him, asking himself as a
special favour, what he knew Dante desired to be asked,
whether it would please him to be his guest. The two
lo Dante at Ravenna
wills, that of the host and the guest, thus tending to one
issue,^ and Dante pleased at once with the unqualified
liberality of the offer on the one hand, and pressed hard
by his own necessities on the other, waiting for no second
invitation, betook, himself to Ravenna, where Guido
received him with every honour, revived his fallen hopes,
gave him in abundance all that he needed, and kept him
with him in that city for many years, even to the last of
his life. '2
From this passage we may safely conclude that
Dante's arrival in Ravenna cannot have taken
place before the accession of Guido Novello to
power, and that since his predecessor Lamberto
died in June, 1316, and Guido was not elected
till October of the same year, Dante would hardly
begin his sojourn in Ravenna before the year 1317,
an interval of four years having elapsed between
the death of the German Emperor and the event
in question. That the date cannot be placed later
is proved by a curious piece of contemporary
evidence. Pietro di Dante, son of Dante, accom-
panied his father to Ravenna, and there held the
two benefices of S. Maria di Zenzanigola and of
S. Simone di Muro, the gift of Caterina, wife of
Guido Novello. There is a document extant
which records the sentence of Pope John XXII.
^ 'Che del fare e del chieder tra voi due
Fia primo quel, che tra gli altri e piu tardo '
(i.e. ' The granting shall forerun the asking ').
Par., xvii. 74, 75.
And the compliment by which Dante has immortalized the courtesy
of his first host is due in equal measure to his last.
- Boccaccio, ' Vita di Dante,' p. 30.
Introduction 1 1
against Pietro di Dante and others for not
having paid the fees due to the Papal Legate,
Bertrando del Poggetto, in right of the benefices
which they held. Evidently, from this docu-
ment, Pietro di Dante, together with the other
defaulters, had enjoyed the unshorn revenues
of these two benefices some little time before
the discovery was made, and the fees so long
due were replaced by a fine imposed by the angry
Legate.^
We have another testimony which points to the
fact of Dante having resided several years at
Ravenna in the dates of the poetical correspond-
ence between himself and Giovanni di Virgilio,
Cecco d'Ascoli, and others. Various episodes
in this correspondence suggest the idea that
Ravenna was his permanent residence, that
he made excursions from it, but always returned
to it.
* Torno a Ravenna, e di li non parto,' is a line
which appears in one of the Eclogues, but these
will be referred to at length later on.
So far, then, as it is possible to judge at this
distance of time, we may conclude that the exiled
life, which found the well-known ' first refuge '-
at Verona in 131 1, had about four years yet to
run when it gently glided into the port of the
' ultimo rifugio ' at Ravenna.
' • Ultimo Kifugin," app., p. 415, doc. ix.
' ' Par.,' xvii. 70.
12 Dante at Ravenna
' In quella parte
Di mia etc\ dove ciascun dovrebbe
Calar le vele e raccoglier le sarte.'^
* As to that part
Of life I found me come, when each behoves
To lower sails and gather in the lines.'
Gary, Trans.
^ ' Inf.,' xxvii. 77, So; also ' Convito Tratt.,' IV. xxviii.
CHAPTER I.
RA VENN A.
CHAPTER I.
RAVENNA.
'Ravenna sta come stata e moll' anni.'
Inf., xxvii. 40.
' Ravenna stands as many years she stood.'
BY this single line Dante seems to recall all
the glory of the past, and to reinvest the
city with the Imperial robe.
For when he entered Ravenna, there, as ever,
stood the vast walls on their solid Roman founda-
tion, which, when they ceased to be the last
shelter of the failing Empire, had become the
chosen centre of the Gothic rule. Many a
glorious edifice still remained in untouched
splendour to witness to a gigantic past welded
out of the ancient power of Rome, supplemented
even in the moment of decline by the rude
strength of the Romanized Barbarian.
Such were the rich sculptures of the Porta
Aurea ; the glittering splendour of the Basilica
Ursiana, with its five aisles ; S. Andrea de' Goti,
said to be a climax of Barbarian effort ; the
churches built by the Empress Galla Placidia,
1 6 Dante at Ravenna
Santa Croce and S. Giovanni Evangelists, her
votive offerings to the saint whose aid she had
invoked in the midst of the raging storm on the
treacherous Hadrian Sea. Still the river Padenna
flowed through the city, fa9ades of churches
adorned with rich porticos, like those of Venice,
arose on either side of its course, and beside them
stood like some guardian sentinel the round Bell
Tower, that characteristic feature of Ravenna.
In the adjoining cemeteries lay the great sarco-
phagi of the illustrious dead Emperor or Arch-
bishop in the last solemn repose, adorned with
those varied emblems of early Christian art which
symbolize the Christian's hope. From their midst
there rose the sombre majesty of the cypress or
the brilliant verdure of the acacia, to break the
long lines of slumbering mortality, and, pointing
ever towards heaven, suggest to the living citizens
the life of the world to come.
Neither tide of river nor of population now
animates the silent, grass-grown streets, and some
of the great relics of the past have either yielded
to the slow decay of centuries or have been
rudely swept away by the desolation of civil
warfare.
But yet those which remain suffice to give some
idea of a past which could never be derived from
the pen of the historian alone.
If the bed of a torrent was considered by the
warriors of Alaric the Goth to be the only resting-
place in Italy worthy of their leader, at Ravenna
Ravenna
17
one huge rock, raised by the filial piety of Ama-
lassunta, remains to mark the grave of the great
Theodoric.
If the Church of S. Andrea de' Goti has perished,
yet still the tomb of Galla Placidia in its vicinity
preserves the memory of the foundress, and the
dark vault of her resting-place is illuminated by a
mosaic in such rare preservation as to suggest the
glory of the whole design.
If the sea has receded from the port where
once the galleys of the Caesars rode in triumph,
still there in the lone waste of the marsh S. Ap-
pollinare in Classe remains in solitary splendour
on the site of the Roman temple. Columns of
shining marble, which once adorned the pagan
shrine, have now raised for thirteen centuries the
vault where glitters in undimmed splendour the
mosaic of the Cross of Christ.
Ever throughout the venerable city, either
within or without the walls, in the ancient baptis-
tery, in the twin S. Appollinare, called Nuovo
in the fourth century, Santa Maria in Porto, or
San Vitale, beautiful as some Eastern dream,
church after church repeats the same story, in
the same mysterious characters, the same scarcely
changing hues.
Now by symbol, now by direct portraiture, they
tell of the Good Shepherd, with the sheep of His
pasture, of the long row of white-robed martyrs
who sealed their faith with their blood, or, pouring
his gifts before the altar, of the Emperor whose
2
1 8 Dante at Ravenna
effigy from the midst of all the accumulated
splendour of marble, alabaster, and mosaic, looks
out century after century with the same motion-
less gaze which probably inspired the lines :
' Cesare fui e son Giustiniano ;
Che per voler del prime amor ch' io sento,
D' entro alio leggi trasse il troppo e '1 vane'
Par.^ vi. IO-I2.
' . . . Caesar I was,
And am Justinian ; destined by the will
Of that prime love, whose influence I feel,
From vain excess to clear the incumber'd laws.'
Carv, Trans.
Thus Ravenna stood at the close of the tradi-
tions of the Empire ; even the last vestige of Im-
perial power was being merged in the dawning
sovereignty of the Popes when Dante the exile
arrived before her gates.
Ravenna threw them open to her illustrious
guest, and by this act of hospitality coupled her
name with his, taking her place by his side on the
threshold of the future of Italy.
CHAPTER II.
THE EAGLE OF POLENTA, THE TYRANTS OF THE
ROMAGNA AND THE POPES CONTEMPORARY WITH
DANTE.
2—2
CHAPTER II.
THE EAGLE OF POLENTA, THE TYRANTS OF THE
KOMAGNA, AND THE POPES CONTEMPORARY
WITH DANTE.
' L' Aquila (la Polenta la si cova
Si che Cervia ricuopre coi suoi Vanni.'
Inf., xxvii. 41, 43,
• There Polenta's eagle broods,
And in his broad circumference of plume
O'ershadows Cervia.'
Gary, Trans.
1L GRAX LOMBARDO ' is the name by
which Dante has transmitted to posterity
the courtesy of Can Grande della Scala,
his rirst host in exile. Still preserving the refer-
ence to place which forms such a marked feature
in all Italian records, he confers upon Guide
Novello the proud title of L' Aquila da Polenta
(The Eagle of Polenta), under whose widespread
wings he sought and found a last refuge. The
well-known cognizance of the eagle — the ' Santo
Uccello ' of the Emperor, often conceded as a
quartering to those who held high office under
the Empire — was borne, according to the heraldic
historian,' with many a variation by the different
branches of the Polentani.
' ' I'assermi C'jniinu.izifnc Litia Kamiglie Celebri,' i. 461.
2 2 Dante at Ravenna
Its wings are displayed now on a silver and
now on a golden field, but in the shield of Guido
NovcUo the eagle is red and the field gold. The
family title was derived from the Castle of Polenta,
which stood some thirty miles inland south of
Ravenna, and of which only a small fragment
remains standing. It would just have been en-
closed in the sweep of the eagle's pinion which,
including Cesena, covered the port of Cervia.
Following the heraldic imagery, in which the
rulers of the Romagna are presented to us in the
' Divina Commedia,' the adjoining city of Forli,
having made a gallant stand against the Pope and
his allies, lay then under the talons of the green
lion of the Ordelaffi.
' La terra che fe gia la lunga pruova,
E di Franceschi sanguinoso mucchio
Sotto le branche verdi si ritruova.'
Inf., xxvii. 33-44.
' The green talons grasp
The land that stood erewhile the proof so long,
And piled in bloody heap the host of France.'
Gary, Trans.
At Rimini the vindictive tyranny of the Mala-
testa is characterized by the ferocity of a mastiff.
' E '1 Mastin vecchio e '1 nuovo da Verrucchio,
Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo
La dove soglion, fan de' denti succhio.'
Ibid.. 45, 46.
The Tyrants of the Romagna 23
' The old Mastiff of Verracchio and the young
That tore Montagna in their wrath still make
Where they are wont an auger of their fangs.'
Ibid.
They were Guelphs, and for that reason had
murdered Montagna de' Parcisati, a Riminese
noble, for no other reason than that he was a
GhibelHne. But the Hon's cub, Mainardo Pagani,
who governs the two cities which are watered by
the Lamone and the Santermo, i.e., Imola and
Forh, is a Guelph at one season of the year, a
GhibelHne at another.
* Le citta di Lamone e di Santerno
Conduce il Leoncel del nido bianco,
Che muta parte dalla state al verno.'
Ibid., 47, 48.
* Lamone's city and Santerno's range
Under the lion of the snowy lair,
Inconstant partisan that changeth sides
Or ever summer yields to winter's frost.'
And thus they live for ever in the ' Divina
Commedia,' these mediseval tyrants of the
Romagna, for even the boast of their heraldry
has been rescued by Dante from the grave.
Like the grim towers which crowned at intervals
the embattled walls of the Italian city of those
times and protected the citadel, they seem to
stand around the nascent temporal power of the
Papacy.
For tlic sovereignty of the triple crown no
24 Dante at Ravenna
longer remained in the lifeless grasp of the puppet
which Charlemagne had invested with a semblance
of authority to represent the Western Empire
and take the place of the discredited government
of the Byzantine Court.
Little by little the efligy had come to Hfe, and,
as Villemain rhetorically observes, ' wanted to
reign.'
Nor would it be satisfied with vague, high-
sounding words or phantom dominions.
In the year 1278 all former treaties and con-
cessions which had from time to time been wrested
from the Empire were secured by an irrevocable
deed. Nicholas III., the Orsini Pope, playing
upon the religious fears of Rudolph of Hapsburg,
wrung from him the final cession of the exarchate
of Ravenna and the fortresses of the Pentapolis,
as the price to be paid for the redemption of the
Emperor's unfulfilled vow.
It was in vain that Caesar struggled to retain
the 'garden of the Empire,'^ to which Dante a
few years later pathetically recalled him.
The Pope would not let slip the opportunity,
and two Acts were signed by the Imperial Am-
bassador. By the one the Empire renounced all
further claim to the fealty of the Romagna ; by
the other the confines of the States of the Church
were defined, and all the cities comprised in them
were named one by one, and made over to the
Papal authority.
^ ' Che '1 giardin dell' imperio sia diserto.'
I'urg.., vi. 105.
The Popes contemporary with Dante 25
Thus it may be seen how the awakened
puppet of Charlemagne developed into a living
power, which became eventually a giant figure in
the scheme of European politics, thundering for
no less than five centuries decrees ' Urbi et Orbi,'
till at last, within the recollection of the present
generation, it has, amid a storm of dispute as to
its origin and utility, disappeared from the scene.
Dante was many centuries before his time when
he condemned this same Orsini Pope, and all the
' miserable followers '^ of Simon ^Slagus who
should succeed him, to lie to all eternity in close
proximity to that earth on which they had fixed
the gaze which should have been turned towards
heaven.
'If — these are the words he puts into the
mouth of Nicholas III. — 'thou carest so much to
know who I am . . . know that I was vested in
the great mantle (of the Papacy), and truly was
a son of the she-bear (one of the Orsini), so
greedy to advance the bear-cubs that above (in
the world) I stowed wealth, and here (in hell)
myself in this pouch.-
Then follow prophecies of the yet more atro-
cious guilt of his successors, Boniface VIII. and
Clement V., to which Dante replies with the
famous question which strikes at the root of the
temporal power :
' Deh or mi di', quaiito tcsoro voile
Nostro Signore in prima da san Pictro,
' 'Inf.,' xix. I. - //'/,/., 70-73.
2 6 Dante at Ravenna
Che gli ponesse le chiavi in balia ?
Certo non chiese se non i Viemmi retro
Nb Pier nc gli altri tolsero a Mattia
Oro od argento, quando fu sortito
Al loco che perdc I'anima ria.'
' Pray tell me, now, how much treasure did our Lord
require from St. Peter before He put the keys into his
charge? He certainly made no further demand upon
him than, " Follow thou Me." Nor did Peter nor the
other Apostles extort from Matthias gold or silver, when
he was appointed by lot to the post which the guilty soul
Judas Iscariot had forfeited.'^
' Fatto v'avete Dio d'oro e d'argento ;
E che altro e da voi agl' idolatre
Se non ch'egli uno, e voi n'orate cento ?'
' Ye have made for yourselves a god of gold and silver,
and what other distinction is there between you and the
idolaters, except that they adore one thing, and you a
hundred of them ?'-
To Nicholas, whose simoniacal conduct gave rise
to this burst of righteous indignation, succeeded
Martin IV., the Frenchman of Tours, and who
does penance in the ' Purgatorio ' for his glutton's
death,=^ whose fierce hatred of the Ghibellines was
only foiled at Forli by the craft of Guido da
1 Vernon's ' Readings on the Inferno,' xix., p. 95.
- Ibid., p. 100.
•^ ' Purg.,' xxiv. 21-24 :
' Ebbe la santa chiesa in le sue braccia
Del Torso fu ; e purga per digiuno
L'Anouille di Bolseiia e la vemaccia.'
The Popes contemporary with Dante 27
Montefeltro, to return a second time with terrible
vengeance upon the luckless city.
The short pontificates of Honorius IV, (1285-
1287) and Nicholas IV. (1288-1292), which had
promised better things, were succeeded by that of
Celestine V., whose cowardly desertion of his post
has been handed down to posterity in the single
line:
' Che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto. '
Inf., iii. 60.
' Who, to base fear yielding, abjured his high estate.'
We must admit, however, that, as a matter of
history, the anchorite virtues of Pope Celestine V.
compare favourably with the opposite vices of his
predecessors and successors in the Papal chair.
But the cause of the fierce indignation of Dante,
which prompted one of the finest passages in the
' Inferno,' as he assigns to Celestine V. a place
among the * wretches who ne'er lived,'^ is not far
to seek.
The abdication of Celestine was brought about
by the combined threats and artifices of his
haughty rival, Cardinal Caetani. In abject terror
Celestine vacated the Papal throne, thereby
making the vacancy so eagerly desired by the
ambitious Cardinal, who was forthwith elected to
it, and, under the name of Boniface VIII., has
left no uncertain record of himself upon the page
of history. He claims our attention first as one
of the central figures of the ' Divina Commedia ' —
' 'Inf.,' iii. 64.
28 Dante at Ravenna
a central figure because of the circumstances
which brought him into such close connection
with the author as to influence his whole life and
work.
But for the embassy from Florence to Boni-
face VIII., we may reasonably suppose there
would have been no exile for Dante, and then,
probably, no ' Divina Commedia.'
When selected as the chief of the legation to
Rome, to deliberate with the Pope whether or not
it would be advisable to invoke the aid of the
French arms to settle the quarrels of the opposing
factions, Dante was in the prime of his manhood,
at the zenith of his reputation.
Boccaccio gives us some idea of the estimation
in which he was held in Florence :
' In him was centred the public faith, on him were
fastened the people's hopes ; in short, he was held to be
the only counsellor in all things human and Divine'
(Boccaccio, 'Vita di Dante,' pp. 30-32).
* Nor did he,' Boccaccio naively adds, * think it
necessary to set a lower value on his own merits
than that universally accorded to him by his con-
temporaries, as we may judge from his memor-
able answer (when elected as chief ambassador),
" If I go, who remains ? If I remain, who
goes ?" '
When these proud words were uttered, how
httle did Dante think that he would never again
re-enter Florence.
The Popes contemporary with Dante 29
But such was the result of the Embassy.
Hardly had the Ambassadors arrived in Rome,
than the Pope sent for them into his room to
remonstrate with them on their objections to his
scheme of summoning Charles of Valois and the
French arms to pacify the internal dissensions of
Florence.
* Why are you so obstinate ?' exclaimed the
angry Pope. ' Humble yourselves before me. I
tell you truly, I have no other intention but to
provide for your peace and welfare. Return two
of you to Florence, and my blessing will go with
you if you cause my will to be obeyed.'
The two colleagues of Dante — Maso Miner-
betti and Corazza, a bitter Guelph — returned to
Florence ; but Dante, who had always opposed
the intervention of the French arms, remained in
Rome.
The revolution in Florence which brought in
Charles of Valois resulted, not unnaturally, in a
severe condemnation of those who had opposed
the policy. Dante was not only included in the
condemnation of April, 1302, but, on account of
his importance to the Republic and his promi-
nent position as a citizen, he had been previously
singled out for two special condemnations. In
the preceding January of the same year he was
prohibited from re-entering Florence under pain
of being burnt alive.
These events, the revolution of Charles of
Valois, and his own exile, are commented upon in
30 Dante at Ravenna
various passages of the * Divina Commedia'; but
can we wonder that at this period the pen of
Dante is dipped in fire as he writes of Boniface,
the author not only of his own ruin, but also of
that of his country ?
Guido da Montcfeltro, betrayed by Boniface, is
made to describe him as ' II Principe de' nuovi
Farisei' ('Inf.,' xxvii. 83), and St. Peter to
anathematize, ' Quegli ch' usurpa in terra il luogo
mio' (* Par.,' xxvii. 21), while condemning point
by point the errors of the Papal Government :
(i) the fomenting of civil discord —
' Non fu nostra intenzion, ch 'a destra mane,
De' nostri successor parte sedesse,
Parte dall' altra, del popol cristiano.'
Par.^ xxvii. 46, 48.
' No purpose was of ours
That on the right hand of our successors
Part of the Christian people should be set,
And part upon their left.'
(2) the misuse of the keys —
' Ne che le chiavi, che mi fur concesse,
Divenisser, segnacolo in vessillo
Che contra i battezzati combattesse.'
' Nor that the keys,
Which were vouchsafed me, should for ensigns
serve
Unto the banners, that do levy war
On the baptized.'
The Popes contemporary with Dante 31
(3) and of Peter's pence —
' Ne' ch' io fosse figura di sigillo
A privilegii venduti e mendaci,
Ond' io sovente arrosso e disfavillo.'
' Nor I, for sigil-mark
Set upon sold and lying privileges :
Which makes me oft to flicker and turn red.'
Gary, Trans.
Yet in spite of this vehement attack, when this
same Pope is made prisoner in Anagni, Dante, in
strong condemnation of the deed, does not
hesitate to use the comparison of Pilate as he
describes the insult to the office filled by the
vicegerent of our Saviour upon earth.
Boniface VIII. may be taken as the type of the
mediaeval Pope, and, with all his faults, a certain
grandeur can never be dissociated from the figure
of the lonely old man who, deserted by all, sat on
his throne fully vested in his pontifical robes, with
the triple crown on his head, his trembling hands
still grasping the golden cross and the keys,
emblematic of his office. It was no wonder if, for
the moment, even the audacity of the emissaries
of Philip of France and the fierceness of the
Roman barons were overawed by so exact and
living an embodiment of all the current traditions
of the Papal power. But for this incident in the
records of the time, and the way in which it is
handled by Dante, we might never have arrived
at the clue to the vexed question how Dante,
32 Dante at Ravenna
beings a loyal son of the Church, could allow him-
self to hand down to posterity branded with infamy
six of the Popes who succeeded each other in the
chair of St. Peter during his lifetime.^ Yet one
more example is furnished by the forty-days
pontificate of Adrian V., who expiates his sin of
avarice in the * Purgatorio,' where he describes how
by proof he learnt,
' Come
Pesa il gran manto a chi dal fango '1 guarda ;
Che piuma sembran tutte I'altre some.'^
* With what a weight that robe of sovereignty
Upon his shoulder rests, who from the mire
Would guard it ; that each other fardel seems
But feathers in the balance.'
But although, as we gather from these lines,
Dante could form a true estimate of the weight
of the Papal mantle of responsibility, he did not
believe it to be an impossible feat to keep it un-
sullied from worldly stain. Instead of being
contaminated b}' the world, his lofty ideal of the
Papacy contemplated, on the contrary, a purifying
influence, which would be exercised over Christen-
' Niccolo III., 1277-12S0 {' Inf.,' xix. 31).
Martino IV., 1281-1285 ('Inf.,' xix. 31).
Celestino V., 1294- 1294 ('Inf.,' iii, 59, 60).
Bonifazio VIII., 1294-1303 (' Inf.,' xix. 53 ; xxvii. 70 ; xxxiii, 44.
' Purg.,' XX. 87; xxxii. 149; xxxiii. 44. 'Par.,' ix. 132; xii. 90;
xvii.49; xxvii. 22; XXX. 148).
Clemente V., 1305-1314 ('Inf.,' xix. 82. 'Purg.,' xxxii. 15
' Par.,' xvii. 82 ; xxvii. 59 ; xxx. 142).
Giovanni XXII., 1316-1334 ('Par.,' xxvii. 58).
- ' Purg.,' xix. 99, seq.
The Popes Contemporary with Dante 3 -^
dom at large — a government whose motive should
be as lofty as its position was supreme, a sun
whose pure and brilliant rays should illuminate
the darkness of a dark age, and point the way to
eternity.
Could there be a more painful contrast than
that presented by the reality ? — a reality, moreover,
which, instead of improving, only went from bad
to worse. For in the succeeding pontificates of
Benedict XL, Clement V.^ and John XXII., it
was the lot of Dante to see the Papacy enter upon
a yet more degrading phase of its existence, when
the Popes, having made themselves the abject
slaves of the King of France, were for seventy
years his willing captives in Avignon, and to fore-
tell accurately, though under the form of a some-
what gross allegory,^ the results which Petrarch
records in his memorable pictures drawn from life
in the modern Babylon.
But to return to the thirteenth century.
The first step of the new suzerain was to claim
the homage of his subjects, and, admonished by
Papal ambassadors, the Polenta of Ravenna, the
Malatesta of Rimini, and Guido da Montefeltro,
swore fealty to the Pope instead of to the
Emperor, and Papal legates were dispersed
throughout the province thereafter designated as
the Romagna.
Dante describes its limits :
'Tra '1 Po, cl monte, e la marina e '1 Reno,'-
' I'urg., x.xxii. 156. - Ibid., xiv. 93.
3
34 Dante at Ravenna
boundaries which were only probably too familiar
to him as he crossed and recrossed the country in
his frequent wanderings, till there was hardly a
castle or city of any importance that was not
known to him, to be recorded each in its turn in
the 'Divina Commedia.' Taking into account the
natural features of the country and the character-
istics of the rulers, no territory, with the exception
of Tuscany, has contributed so many episodes to
the Poem as the Romagna.
The description of the tyrants forms part of the
famous episode of Guido da Montefeltro, and is
the answer to the inquiry :
' Dimmi se i Romagnuoli han pace oguerra ;'^
' Tell me if those who in Romagna dwell
Have peace or war,'
at last formulated by the restless, leaping tongue
of the flame by which he expiates his fraudulent
counsel in the Inferno.
In the Purgatorio, Guido del Duca of Bret-
tinoro and Riniero da Calboli of Forli, clinging
together in their blindness, and making the dreary
circuit assigned to the envious, enlarge upon the
same theme, as they contrast the venomous plants
{venenosi sterpi) which have now taken root in
the Romagna with the noble scions of former
generations. * Always,' to quote Benvenuto da
Imola, ' at feud with one another, and, just as
bad weeds extirpated by the plough swarm up
' Inf., xxvii. 28.
Francesca da Rimini 35
again like the heads of the Hydra, so in the
Romagna no amount of good government and
legislation would suffice to root out the flagrant
abuses that prevailed there. '^
It is to the Romagna also that we owe the
greatest of all the episodes of the * Divina
Commedia ' :
* Siede la terra, dove nata fui,
Su la marina dove '1 Po discende
Per aver pace co' seguaci sui ;'
' The land that gave me birth
Is situate on the coast where Po descends
To rest in ocean with his sequent streams,'
is the prelude to the immortal narrative of Fran-
cesca da Rimini.
Nor, as we have seen, is the origin of the
tragedy on which it is founded far to seek in the
cruel, unscrupulous rivalry of the potentates so
justly stigmatized by Dante as tyrants.
The favour of the Popes to whom they paid
homage gave colour to their pretensions to power,
and the sometimes empty title of Vicars of the
Archbishops, which gave them importance in the
eyes of the people, often led to their being elected
podesta, or magistrate, of the city. Then some
fortunate conquest would extend the municipal or
increase the territorial rights of the State, and the
crafty ruler would avail himself of the popular
' Vernon's ' Readings on the Purgatorio,' j) 46.
' Inf., V. 97.
36 Dante at Ravenna
enthusiasm of the moment to lay the foundation
of absolute, and even hereditary, power.
Step by step this process may be traced in the
history of the Polenta family. They are first
heard of in the history of Ravenna as Vicars of
the Archbishops in the year 1167, next as fulfilling
the office of podesta, or magistrate. In the twelfth
century the government of Ravenna consisted of
a podesta and two consuls ; each consul ruled for
fifteen days, and was then succeeded by the other
consul. At the end of another fifteen days the
first consul returned to office.^ In all these forms
of popular government the Polenta took part till
they gradually gathered the reins of power into
their hands.
In the year 1275 Guido il Vecchio was Podesta
of Ravenna, and he won himself great favour in
the eyes of the citizens by the acquisition of
Cervia from the Papal nominee Stefaneschi, thus
considerably extending the territorial influence of
Ravenna.
But in order further to strengthen his own
position and to subdue completely the people, he
invoked the aid of the Malatesta at Rimini.
The tyrants, who had long been at war with
each other, united in a common cause against the
people. The Malatesta lent a powerful support,
and Guido il Vecchio remained firmly fixed in his
^ The little Republic of San Marino still preserves this elective
form of government. Twice every year, on April i and October I,
two Captains of the Republic are chosen and invested with six
months' authority.
Francesca da Rimini 37
saddle. His daughter, the beautiful Francesca,
was destined to reward the valour of his allies.
The old Malatesta had two sons. The eldest,
Giovanni or Gianciotto, so called because he was
deformed and ugly; the 3'oungest, Paolo, endowed
with every fascination. But the political ends of
Guido il Vecchio and Malatesta da Verrucchio
could only be secured by an intermarriage with
the eldest son. It was not likely that Francesca,
in the prime of her youth and beauty, would con-
sent to this arrangement. So Paolo was sent for
to Ravenna, ostensibly to stand proxy for his
brother at the marriage, but to the unfortunate
bride he was made to appear as her affianced
husband. Of the sequel, as Dante was the first
narrator so let him be the last, for no one has ever
yet succeeded in adding a touch to the unrivalled
pathos of her story.^
Guido il Vecchio, who died in 1310, was suc-
ceeded by his son Lamberto, in whose person were
combined the offices of Podesta and Consul of
Ravenna, thus constituting a position of absolute
sovereignty. At the death of Lamberto, Guido
Novello, at that time Consul of Cesena, nephew
of Guido il Vecchio, son of Ostazio da Polenta,
was elected to succeed his uncle, and Cesena
became included in the sweep of the wing of the
Eagle of Polenta.
^ Inf., V. 70, et iC(j. Tradition itulic.ilcs the portrait of Fran-
cesca da Kimirii to be in the Church of Sta. Maria in I'orto fuori at
Ravenna, but as there is no proof to support ttie theory, it only rests
on the probabilities sugi^ested l)y tlie place, the period of tlie work,
and the extreme beauty of the fresco.
38 Dante at Ravenna
It is a pleasing change to turn from the violence
of faction, the struggle for dominion beginning
with the two great Powers of the civilized world
arrayed against each other in open opposition,
thence spreading through every State and city,
and marked by vindictive tyranny in every hateful
form, to contemplate the brief reign of Guido
Novello. His lordship over Ravenna is marked
by an open preference for peace and the arts of
peace. Early in life he had shown that when
necessity arose, and when the welfare of the State
was in jeopardy, he could fight as determinedly
as any of the tyrants of the Romagna, however
much he preferred the cultured society of learned
men and the exercise of his own natural gift for
poetry. In this light he appears to us as one of
the precursors of those lords of the Renaissance
who even in the midst of the din of constant
warfare could plan the construction of palaces
and churches, discuss points of rhetoric or art,
and at times could even lay down the sword
and take up the pen to write ballads and
sonnets.
Such were Lorenzo de' Medici at Florence and
Guidobaldo at Urbino in the fifteenth century,
but Guido Novello was before his age when he
built himself a palace at Ravenna, and invited
Dante to be not only his guest, but also his
instructor in the arts of rhetoric and poetry.
Of the Camera a Coronis, as the palace is
described in the ancient topography of Ravenna,
Camera a Coronis 39
only the outer wall remains standing, facing the
tomb of Dante, and bearing the inscription :
' Questa Casa
fu in tempo dei Polentani
che ebbero la gloria
Di accogliere ospitalmente
Dante Alighieri.'^
1 This house existed in the time of the Polentani, who had the
glorious privilege of receiving as their guest Dante Alighieri. — Trans.
CHAPTER III.
DANTE A TEACHER OF RHETORIC IN RAVENNA,
AND 'IL VOLGA RE ELOQUIO.'
CHAPTER III.
DANTE A TEACHER OF RHETORIC IN RAVENNA,
AND ' IL VOLGARE ELOQUIO.'
' Qui comincio a leggere Dante in pria
Retorica Vulgare e molti aperti
Fece di sua Toetica armonia.'
Saviozzo da Siena : Riine di AT. Cino da
Fistoia e di altri del Secolo, xiv., p. 575.
ALTHOUGH in the first instance Dante was
the invited and honoured guest of Guide
Novello, there is sufficient reason to
believe that he did not depend for his mainte-
nance upon the hospitahty of his patron during
the whole of his sojourn at Ravenna — whether or
no he actually filled the chair of the Professor of
Rhetoric in that city. The probabilities to which
the red academical gown of his portraits gives
colour in more senses than one are in favour of
this honour having been conferred upon him, but
the actual historical statement which would make
the fact certain is unfortunately lacking. Schools
of grammar and rhetoric since the reign of
Theodosius are known to have existed in Ravenna.
The first authentic notice of such schools being
44 Daiitc at Ravenna
extant dates from the sixth century, and rests on
the testimony of Procopius, the historian of
Justinian, with reference to Vincenzo Fortunate,
at that time a celebrated rhetorician.
There, under the shadow of the great Emperor
Justinian, civil jurisprudence was digested for the
use of all succeeding generations in the immortal
works of the 'Code,' the 'Pandects,' and the
* Institutes.'
Long before the University of Bologna received
her title of Mater Studiorum, the great traditions
of the Emperor and his famous code were handed
down in the schools of Ravenna from rhetorician
to rhetorician, as from time to time they shed the
light of their learning upon the dense horizon of
the Dark Ages.
These schools, which had received the support
of the Eastern Empire, continued to flourish
under the Exarchate, the Longobardi, and the
Ravennese Bishops who represented the Papal
power.
The record of those who held the office of
public lecturer appears to date from 1268, when
Pasio della Noce was summoned by the Senate
to give lectures on jurisprudence in Ravenna. In
1298, when Dante was reaching the zenith of his
power in Florence, Ugo di Riccio was juris civilis
professis in Ravenna.
Six years afterwards, 1304 (Dante had by that
time been three years in exile), there is another
record of one Leone da Verona, who received a
A Teacher of Rhetoric 45
salary of 25 lire Ravegnane to teach grammar
and logic to the Ravennese youth.
The next notice, bearing date 1333, twelve
years after the death of Dante, is of one Giovanni
Giacomo del Bando, who went from Cesena to
Ravenna to teach logic, medicine, philosophy, and
astronomy. There is no actual historical record
that, in the interval, when no other name is men-
tioned, Dante occupied the rhetoric chair during
the four years of his sojourn at Ravenna, and this
throws us back upon the probabilities in favour
of his having done so. We have gathered from
the historical notices that such a chair was in
existence, and that the Ravennese had been at
some pains to have it worthily filled. What is
more likely than that Guido Novello, himself
a scholar, and with a profound admiration for
Dante, should have seized the opportunity to
procure both for himself and his city the advan-
tage of so unrivalled an instructor ?
These probabilities must, of course, be taken at
their own value, but there is also contemporary
testimony which adds weight to the supposition.
Boccaccio notes that Dante in Ravenna had
many scholars in poetry, and particularly nella
volgare. Saviozzo da Siena follows and amplifies
Boccaccio's statement.
' Qui comincib a leggere Dante in pria
Ketorica Vulgare e molti aperti
P'ecc di sua Poetica armonia.'^
' 'Rime di M. Cino da Pistoia e di altri del Sec.,' xiv., p. 575
(date 1396- 1459)-
46 Dante at Ravenna
Manetti, one of the early biographers of Dante,
supports the theory; but the most conclusive
evidence rests on a codex in the Laurentian library,
cited by Bandini, which states :
' It is commonly reported that Dante, being studying
in Ravenna, and giving lectures as a Doctor to his pupils
upon various works, the schools became the resort of many
learned men.'^
This would coincide with the statement by
Boccaccio, that many doctors of science attended
the funeral of Dante.
One of his minor works, entitled ' II Volgare
Eloquio,' is supposed to have formed the subject
of his lectures to his pupils at Ravenna.
It seems that up to the fifteenth century the
' Volgare Eloquio ' had never been read in Italy.
The first edition we owe to Gian Giorgio Trissino,
who made a faithful translation from the original
Latin into Italian, and under the pseudonym of
Giovan Battista Doria dedicated it to the Cardinal
Ippolito de' Medici. For a long time, even up to
the present day, it was supposed that Trissino
had himself fabricated the treatise, and passed it
under the name of Dante ; but the discovery of
fourteenth-century MSS., notably that of Grenoble,
which has been recently reproduced (1892), has
put an end to any such supposition, even if the
evidence of contemporary history, to say nothing
' ' Ult. Rif.,' p. 83.
' II Volgare Eloquio ' 47
of the internal evidence, did not suffice to assign
the work to Dante himself.
Some have tried to determine the date of the
book by internal evidence with reference to his-
torical personages^ who are referred to as still
living when the book was composed, and have
therefore fixed its completion in 1306, making it
antecedent to the ' Divina Commedia.' Boccaccio
and Villani, on the other hand, will be seen rather
to lean to the idea that it was one of the poet's
later compositions. But in either case there is
nothing to militate against the supposition that
it formed the substance of his lectures at
Ravenna.
That Dante had the intention of writing such
a book we have on his own authority : * Upon
this matter {i.e., the different dialects of Italy) I
propose to treat at greater length in a book which,
God willing, I intend to write upon the Vulgar
Tongue.'"-
Boccaccio, his contemporary, and Villani, a few
years later on, testify to the fulfilment of his
promise :
' Moreover, Dante wrote a book which he entitled
" De Vulgare Eloquio," which he proposed to divide
into four parts, but only two are extant (perhaps on
account of his sudden death), in the which in masterly
and polished Latin he reproves all the vulgar dialects of
Italy.'3
' Azzo d' Este, Marchese, lib. i., c. xii. ; lib. ii., c. vi.
' ' Convilo Tratt.,' I., c. v., p. 73.
' Boccaccio, 'Vita di Danle. '
48 Dante at Ravenna
' And about this time, already within a few years of his
death, Dante composed a book in Latin prose, which he
entitled " De Vulgare Eloquentia," and, as it is set forth
in this book,i his intention was to divide it into four
distinct parts.
* Either because his labours were cut short by death,
or because two of the books have been lost, only two are
still extant'
If, as most of the earliest biographers maintain,
the loss of the two last books is due to the sudden
death of the author, we may indulge ourselves
in the belief that the two which remain consti-
tute the lectures which, either in the public chair
of rhetoric or in his private house, Dante gave
to his pupils at Ravenna.
The design of the book was to construct out of
the fourteen ancient dialects of Italy an idiom
which, for beauty and sweetness and efficacy,
should equal the ancient Latin, and should be
universally employed throughout Italy as the
organ of the expression of Italian thought. Dante
was the first to whom such an idea occurred.
' Being unable to find,' so the book opens, ' that any-
one has ever before attempted a treatise on the vulgar
tongue, and perceiving that the knowledge of this vulgar
tongue is indispensable to all, as not only men, but
women and children, so far as they are able, try to avail
themselves of it, and wishing to enlighten the judgment
of those who, like the blind, groi)e about the streets, and
many times misplace the order of things, supposing that
1 Villani, lib. ix., c. cxxxvi.
' II Volgare Eloquio ' 49
which is behind to be in front. With that help which
God sends to us from above, we propose to facihtate the
speech of the common people. Nor will we merely
draw from the sources of our own intellect the water
wherewith to slake our thirst, but, further, taking from
other sources the best of their kind, we will mix the two
together in order to produce a decoction of the sweetest
Hydromel.'^
The use of the plural in this opening sentence,
and on many occasions throughout the book,
rather suggests that the original form of this
treatise must have been a lecture in which the
lecturer invokes the assistance of his hearers to
elucidate his subject, as Dante describes with his
usual felicitous touch in the ' Paradiso ':
' Come discente, ch' a dottor seconda
Pronto e libente in quello ch' egli e sperto
Perche la sua bonta si disasconda.'
Par., XXV. 64-66.
' Like to the scholar, practised in his task,
Who willing to give proof of diligence
Seconds his teacher gladly.'
The origin of language occupies the first five
chapters of the book. The sixth chapter enters
upon a quaint dissertation as to the language of
mankind before the building of the Tower of
Babel, i.e. :
' ' II Volgare Kloquio,' lib. i., c. i.
50
Dante at Ravenna
* The form of speech used by the man who was born
without a mother was never nourished with his mother's
milk, and never saw childhood nor youth. ^
' Should anyone exist so prejudiced in judgment as to
imagine that his own country is the most favoured spot
in the world, to him it must by a necessary consequence
appear that his own mother-tongue must be superior to any
other language, and thence he would infer that his mother-
tongue must have been the language used by Adam. . . ,
' But to us to whom the world is our country, as the
sea is to the fishes, although we have drunk the waters
of the Arno before ever we cut our teeth, and who love
Florence so much that because of our love for her we
are now suffering an unjust exile — nevertheless our judg-
ment shall lean rather upon reason than upon the affec-
tions ; and therefore, although for our own preference
and to satisfy our own longings there is no spot on earth
more delightful than Florence, yet, on turning over the
volume of the Poets and other writers by whom the world
both in general and in i)articular is described, and taking
into consideration the various parts of the world, and the
different manners and customs between the two Poles
and the Equator, we believe and understand that there
are many regions and cities more noble and more delight-
ful than Tuscany and Florence, where I was born, of
which I am a citizen, and many nations and many people
use a more agreeable and more useful form of language
than the Italians. Returning, therefore, to my premise,
I maintain that a certain form of speech was created by
God together with the creation of the first soul. When
I say form, I mean with regard to a vocabulary of words,
' Compare ' Par.,' vii. 26 :
'Queir uom che non nacque.'
* II Volgare Eloquio ' 5 r
the construction of the vocabulary, and the order of the
construction, the which form was used by everybody who
could speak . . . that with this form Adam spoke, and
all his posterity, up to the time of the Tower of Babel,
which may be interpreted the tower of confusion. This
form of speech was inherited by the sons of Heber —
called after him Hebrews — to whom their language re-
mained intact after the general confusion, in order that
our Redeemer, who was to be born of that nation, might,
when He spoke, according to His manhood employ the
language of grace, and not of confusion.
' It was the Hebrew idiom which was uttered by the
lips of the first man who ever spoke in this world.'^
This idea was afterwards relinquished by Dante,
as in the ' Paradiso ' he puts these words into the
mouth of Adam :
' La lingua ch' io parlai fu tutta spenta
Innanzi che all' ovra inconsumabile
Fosse la gente di Nembrotte attenta.'
Par.^ xxvi. 124-126.
' The language I did use
Was worn away or ever Nimrod's race
Their unaccomplishable work began.'
But the misconception was, as we know, held
by many generations, and supported by scholarly
and religious minds of the highest order. Although
it has been since corrected by philological dis-
coveries which have established the relationship
between Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and other ancient
1 ' II Volgare Eloquio,' lib. i., c. vi., pp. 154, 155.
4—2
52 Dante at Ravenna
tonf:[ues, the oldest form of human speech still
remains lost in the darkness of antiquity. But
ever since the time of Dante the effort to recover
it has been made again and again, for, as it has
been truly said by one of the most modern writers
upon the subject :
' Humanity turns with a natural tenderness and rever-
ence towards any details respecting the first Parents of
Mankind, therefore it is not surprising to find that many
attempts have been made to discover which of the ancient
tongues was the one original speech of Adam and Eve.
All such philological efforts have been necessarily futile,
for the account given in Genesis of the calamity at Babel
shows that it took the shape of a supernatural seizure,
which immediately destroyed the common language and
permanently dislocated the articulation of the people by
confusing its normal action and dispersing its unity, like
the sudden volcanic disturbance of a river-bed, resulting
in a separation and a scattering of one mighty stream
into new and innumerable channels.'^
Chapter vii., with many a characteristic touch,
describes the building of the Tower of Babel,
and leads up to the climax in the confounding
for ever of the human speech. Dante follows
Josephus- when he interprets the word ' Babel '
to mean confusion, and in attributing the sug-
gestion of the tower which was to reach to
heaven to Nimrod.
' 'The Speech of Man and Holy Writ,' p. 58.
- ' Antiq. Jud.,' lib. i., c. iv.
The Tower of Babel 53
' Per lo cui mal coto,
Pur un linguaggio nel mondo non usa.'
Inf., xxxi. 77, 78.
* Through whose ill-counsel in the world no more
One tongue prevails.'
The semi-Scriptural, semi-mythological, gigantic
personality of Nimrod is well known to all readers
of the ' Inferno ':
' La faccia sua mi parea lunga e grossa
Come la pina di San Pietro a Roma ;
Ed a sua proporzione eran 1' altre ossa.'
Ibid., 58-60.
' His visage seemed
In length and bulk as doth the pine that tops
Saint Peter's Roman fane.'
The jargon which he shouts forth as Dante
and Virgil approach is meant to furnish a travesty
of each one of the three languages of Southern
Europe — Italian, French, and Spanish :
Raphel mai
amech
zabi almi.
or
Re fello mai
aimoyt
sabias almas,
(Italian)
(French)
(Spanish)
A bad king never loves wise men, or sages,
sages being the term always applied by Dante to
the poets.
These three great groups of language, distin-
54 Dante at Ravenna
guished by their affirmatives of ' oc,' ' oil,' and
' si,' are derived, Dante supposes, from one
common source, because in the description of
certain things the three nations employ the same
vocabulary, as, for example, in the words ' Dio,'
* cielo,' ' amore,' * mare,' ' terra,' ' vive,' ' muore,'
' amare,' and many others. Here we find resolved
into a nutshell the great achievement of modern
science, so that Dante may be looked upon as
the father of the comparative philology which
rests on this principle.
We find this theory pursued more closely in
chapter ix., where, taking the single example of
the word * amor,' he cites from three selected
masters in each of the languages of ' oc,' * oil,'
and ' si,' Gerardo di Borneil, the King of Navarre,
and Guido Guinicelli, to prove the use of the
word.
' Let us investigate,' Dante continues, ' how the
variations may principally be classed under three heads,
and why each of these variations is also variable — why,
for example, the right side of Italy has a different form
of speech to the left, why the Paduans should speak
differently to the Pisans, and why, moreover, those who
live in close neighbourhood, like the Milanese and the
inhabitants of Verona, the Romans and the Florentines;
why, again, should the form of speech vary between
those who belong to the same race, like the Neapolitans
and the Gaetani, the Ravennese and the inhabitants of
Faenza ; and, what is perhaps the most marvellous of all,
why those who dwell in the same city cannot agree upon
The Tower of Babel ^^
the same form of speech — as, for example, the Bolognese
of Borgo San Felice and the Bolognese of the City. All
these differences and varieties of speech can be attributed
to one cause. '^
The cause is traced back with some elabora-
tion to his original idea of the confusion of the
Tower of Babel, and the oblivion of the first
form of speech, which afterwards became altered
and corrupt.
* And man being ever unstable and variable, his form
of speech could never continue settled and fixed, but,
like everything else, was subject to the changes of time
and place, till at last there appeared the inventors of the
art of grammar, which is nothing less than an unalter-
able conformity of speech at diflerent times and in
different places. '-
The grammarians having decided to take * si '
for an adverb of affirmation, Dante concludes
from this that the Italian language derives a
certain authority over the other two languages,
although it is very difficult to decide between
the three, as all are supported by a great weight
of testimony.
It may be urged, he argues in favour of the
language of ' oil,' that on account of the facilit}'
and sweetness of its dialect it contains all the
translations that have been either found or ren-
dered into the vulgar tongue, such as the books
containing the accounts of the Trojans and
' Lib. i., c. ix., p. 163. - //>/(/., p. 165.
56 Dante at Ravenna
the Romans/ the beautiful romance of King
Arthur, and many other legends and books of
learning.
The language of ' oc,' on the other hand, has
to rest its claim for distinction upon the fact
that it was the language employed by the most
eloquent writers in the vulgar tongue for their
first poems, such as Piero di Avernia, and many
other ancient writers, as the most perfect and
the sweetest form of language.
The third, that is, the Italian language, claims
the superiority on two grounds : The first, that
those who have written the most graceful, polished
poetry were familiar and intimate with it. Such
were Cino da Pistoja and * his friend.'- The
second reason, that it keeps the closest to the
grammar which is common to all.
Leaving the decision of this knotty point to
others, Dante returns to his treatise on the lingua
volgare, discussing the variations which occur in
it, and comparing them one with another.
First of all he states that Italy is divided into
two parts: the right hand and the left hand.
'Should anyone ask what is the line of division, I
briefly reply, the yoke of the Apennines'^ — on the right
^ In Trissino's translation the Latin original has been wrongly
rendered, ' Biblia cum Trojanorum Romanuinque gestibus' being
translated ' La Bibbia, I fatti dei Troiani e Komani,' whereas it
signifies 'i libri che contengono i fatti de' Trojani e de' Romani.'
- By whom Dante means himself (ex., p. 167).
When Dante speaks of the yoke of the Apennines, he includes
the whole chain of the Alps, following the terminology of Lucan in
The * Pharsalia ' of Lucan ^y
hand lie the regions of La Puglia (but not all of it),
Rome, the Duchy (Urbino), Tuscany, and the Marches
his ' Pharsalia.'* It will be remembered that Lucan was the last of
the four great shades of the poets who advanced to greet him and
Virgil when they made their entrance into Limbo :
' L' ultimo e Lucano.'
In/., iv. , p. 90.
* Lucan, ' Pharsalia,' book ii. :
' Retreating Pompey with his trembling band
At Trojan walls of Capua took his stand,
His chosen seat of war. Here he intends
'Gainst the great foe to range his scattered friends.
Where Apennine through wooded hills her peaks
Ridge upon ridge uplifts, and closer seeks
The heights of heaven, midmost Italian crest,
High swelling o'er all foreign heights confessed,
A chain which stretches 'twixt our twofold main,
Lower and higher. Pisa doth contain
Those Western hills, the Tuscan waters' shore ;
Ancon the East, where waves Dalmatian roar.
Here bounteous springs give birth to rivers vast
Which towards either sea dividing haste.
Left fall the Lakes, Crusiumium fierce, Metaurus,
Senna, Isapis, joined to Isaurus,
And Orfidus, which smites th' Hadrian Sea,
And that Eridanus, than which there be
No greater earth despoiler, melting soils,
.Sucking lands dry, bearing off forest spoils.
First said to crown his banks with poplar shade.
When Phaethon, from western course once strayed
Kindled the air with red-hot scorching rein ;
And all the fountains from burnt earth were ta'en ;
This flood alone had waves which could the fire restrain.
Not less than Nile. But Nile through Afric's sand
Expands o'er Egypt's flat and sluggish sand.
Not less than Danube. If his devious course
Half through the world withdrew not from each source
Waters that help him feed the sea with foreign force
The rainfall forms, as slopes the right-hand side,
Tiber and hollow Rutuba ; thence glide
Volturn the swift ; Sarnus, the night fog's cause ;
Lyris, whose wooded bed the stream withdraws
From Vestines to Marica. Siler's way
Which bounds .Salurnum. Macra, on whom stay
No carvels, till she stretch to Luna's neighl)'ring bay.
Longer the chain than country ; for her spine
S8
Dante at Ravenna
of Genoa ; on the left hand He La Puglia (the rest of it),
La Marca d' Ancona, La Romagna, La Lombardia, La
Marca Trivigiana, and Venice. In truth, II FriuH and
Istria cannot but belong to the left side of Italy, just as
the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea — that is to say, Sicily
and Sardinia, including Corsica — must be included in the
right side. On either side, and in all these parts which
are thus included, and even in each city, as we have
already said, we find some variation of speech ; so that
if we care to calculate the first and the second and all
the subdivisions of the vulgar tongue in Italy, we find
that in that small corner of the world alone there may
be even more than a thousand or more variations of
speech.'
Many of these Dante proceeds to show in the
next chapter are discordant and bad, and that,
like trees which have fallen across the road, or
thorns which obstruct the path, they must be cast
out of the author's way as he patiently plods
along the difficult path of investigation. Such
are the Roman dialect, which, to our surprise, we
learn was then ' il piu brutto di tutto,' also those
of Ancona and Spoleto.
Next, those of Milano and Bergamo are passed
Rises to Gallic fields, where Alps incline.
Fruitful to Umbrian, Marsian, Sabine field,
Well tilled, embracing as with pinous shield
The earth-lDorn Latin tribes. Nor yet it leaves
Italian bounds, till closed with Scylla's caves.
Or western rocks, Lacinian Juno's fane.
Longer than Italy, until the main
Loosen'd its bond with blows and floods rolled back again.
But since the double sea the land o'ercame
Its last cliffs to Pelorus yield their name.'
Walter G. F. Phillimore.
La * Crusca' 59
through the sieve, the harsh accents of the
Aquilejan and the Istrian, and all the patois of
the mountains and villages which offend the ears
of the citizen. Such, for example, are the Casen-
tini and the Pratesi. The Sardinians, who do
not really belong to Italy, but have only been
included in the category, are next cast to the
winds.
What, then, remains for comparison after this
vigorous sifting of the dialects of Italy ? Which
of those, asks Dante, that now remain in the
sieve^ is the most to be esteemed ? Be it under-
stood then that, to the shame of the other princes
of Italy, the palm of minstrelsy belongs to Sicily
and to her illustrious heroes, such as
^ Evidently following in the footsteps of Dante, a sieve — or,
strictly speaking, a bolting-cloth, because used for separating the
wheat from the bran — became the device of the Accademia della
Crusca, and its motto 'II piii bel fior ne coglie ' (' Jt gathers the
finest flour'). The metaphor was kept up by the names of the
members, as, for example, Tasso's critical and literary assailants,
Leonardo Salviati and Bastiano de' Rossi, were called Lo Infari-
nato (Mealy) and Lo Inferigno (Brown Bread). These entitled
their first criticism ' a sifting,' and it opened as follows : ' Our
Academy, which has taken, as wc know, the title of the Bolting-
Cloth, because it bolts the flour presented to it from time to time,
that it may separate off the bran, being assembled in full conclave
according to custom at their dwelling ; and having learned from
their steward that a little bag of flour had just been left to be passed
through the sieve, gave orders that it should be brought before them
by their bailiff's servants. Having read in the ticket slitcned upon
it the name of Cammillo Pellegrino, they had the mouth of the bag
untied, and when the judges had examined it, they ordered tiieir
factor immediately lo take the measure and the weight, and to
register both, together with the ticket, on their book of accounts.
No sooner said than done ; and l)y oriler of the Arch-Consul (this
was the title of the President of the Academy) the flour was sjieedily
sifted through the i)OuUer, and the bran separated from it.' — Milman's
* Life of Tasso,' vol. ii., pp. 69, 70.
6o Dante at Ravenna
'Imperial Frederick and Manfred, hiswellnurlured son,^
who, while fortune favoured them, followed the higher
path, and disdained to copy the examples of bestial
tyranny around them. Therefore those who were of
lofty soul and gifted with every grace attached them-
selves to these great princes in their majesty, so that in
that time poetical compositions of the best writers in
Italy first appeared in their Court. And because their
regal Court was held in Sicily, it fell out that all which
our predecessors composed in the vulgar tongue was
called Sicilian : this we maintain, and it can never be
altered by our posterity. '^
' Yet,' he adds, ' as this is not the language of the
majority of the people, but only of the cultivated writers
of the Court, it cannot be said that the Sicilian or
the Puglian is the most beautiful of the Italian dialects.'
Chapter xiii. addresses itself to the Tuscans,
who arrogantly boast that theirs is the volgare
illnstre of Italy, and are unhesitatingly con-
demned, together with the Pisans, Lucchesi,
Sienesi, and Aretini, as obstinate in their ugly
dialect, and therefore not amongst them can the
vulgar tongue be found in its excellence, although
the Tuscan writers, Guido, Lapo, and one other
Florentine besides, Cino da Pistoja, are fully
cognisant of how to render it in its excellence.
As to the Genoese, they are dismissed with the
ironical remark that if by chance they forget to
pronounce the letter z, they may as well give up
the point of speech altogether, as the z constitutes
^ ' Purg.,' iii. 105. ■•' V. E., xii. 175.
Dialects of the Romagna 6i
the main element of their speech, a letter which
can never be pronounced without an ugly aspirate.^
Passing over the wooded sides of the Apennines,
which suggest the beautiful oak glades of the old
forest of the Marziana, Dante begins the investi-
gation of the dialect of the Romagna, with which
his long residence in the country made him fully
acquainted. There, indeed, he finds two distinct
forms of dialect, the one essentially feminine
from the softness of the vowels and the pronuncia-
tion, especially in Forli and the neighbourhood ;
the other form harsh and rough in its vowels and
accent, which, on account of its asperity if used
by a woman, would be so unnatural to her that it
would make you wonder if it was not a man who
was speaking. Such are all who make use of the
word ' magara,' Bresciani, Veronesi, Nicentini,
and even the Paduans, who render the participles
in *tus' and denominatives in * tas ' with an
ugly syncope as ' marco ' and 'corti.' To this group
belong the Trevisani, who, after the fashion of the
Bresciani and the neighbourhood, exchange the/
for a V, removing the last syllable, as, for example,
* nov ' for * nove,' * vif ' for ' vivo,' which is in truth
most barbarous.
As for the Venetians, they are dismissed as
unworthy even of the honour of investigation.
Chapter xiv. is devoted to the discussion of the
Bolognese dialect, and they are not far wrong, the
author tells us, who have pronounced in its
' V. K., xiii. iSi.
62 Dante at Ravenna
favour, although the Bolognese have borrovi^ed
something from Imola, Ferrara, and Modena, and
have thus added to their own dialect ; but this, as
we have seen, is not an uncommon proceeding, as
Sordello tells us of his Mantua, which is bounded
by Cremona, Brescia, and Verona. This man
was so eloquent that not only in his poems, but
even in his ordinary method of speech, he dis-
carded the simple use of his mother-tongue.^
In the same way the Bolognese citizens have
borrowed a sweetness from Imola, and from
Ferrara and Modena a certain loquacity which is
proper to the Lombard. This characteristic has
remained with them, owing to the mixture of the
Longobardian foreigners, and this is the reason
why neither Ferrara (Ariosto was yet to be born),
Modena, nor Reggio have supplied a poet —
because, infatuated with their own loquacity,
they could never attain without a certain asperity
of diction to the cultivated volgare of the Court.
As, then, the Bolognese have borrowed from this
side and from that, it is a natural result that their
language should remain tempered by a mixture
of opposite characteristics with a praiseworthy
sweetness. But yet, if it had been a perfect
dialect, neither Guido Guinicelli, Guido Ghislero,
Fabrizio, and Onesto, nor the other poets, would
have departed from it, for they are illustrious in
learning, and with a perfect knowledge of the
vulgar dialects.
^ See ' Purg.,' vi. 74.
II Volgare Italiano Illustre 63
The result of all these researches and elaborate
descriptions is to prove that, as not one among
all the Italian dialects is worthy to be exalted
sufficiently above the others to give it a claim to
be that one noble Italian language in which all the
learned and cultivated people of Italy should con-
verse and unite, it remains that a language should
be constructed worthy of the Court and of the
Senate, which should appertain to all the cities of
Italy, and not to one alone. ^ This language, this
vulgar tongue, in its perfection should have four
characteristic qualities. It should be noble
(illustre), cardinal {cardinale), stately {aiilico), of
the Court, and cortigiano, which means judicial
or forensic, belonging to the courts of law.
Noble or illustrious, because both illuminated and
illuminating, it should shine.
Why, he argues, are men called illustrious?
Because, illuminated with power, they are wont
with justice and charity to illuminate others ; or,
again, excellently instructed, they can in their
turn excellently instruct. Such were Seneca and
Numa Pompilius. The vulgar tongue of which we
speak, being exalted with learning and power,
should exalt those who use it to honour and
glory.
That it is exalted by learning we can perceive
for ourselves, when, freed from so many rough
' Chapter xvi. :
*Dello eccellente parlar
Volgare il quale e comune a tuUi gli Italian!. '
64 Dante at Ravenna
dialects, so many perf)lexities of construction, so
many deficiencies of pronunciation, so much
village jargon, it can become perfect and elegant
when employed by such poets as Cino da Pistoja
and ' his friend.'
That it becomes exalted with power is easy to
prove ; for
' What is a greater power than that which can turn a
man's heart so as to make him wish who did not wish,
and he who willed not to will, as this language in its
noble form has done and does ? That it raises to honour
those who are gifted with it is very evident. Do not its
disciples surpass in fame all the great ones of the earth,
King, Marquis, or Count? Of that there is no need of
proof ; and that it makes its followers glorious we our-
selves have experienced, as on account of this glory we
are able to cast our exile behind us. Then, certainly it
deserves to be called illustrious.^
' Not without reason do we bestow the second epithet
of "cardinal " upon it, because, as the door follows the
hinge whether it turns inside or outside, so do all the
multitude of dialects of the cities turn and return,
move and remain still, in accordance with the volgare
illustre; or courtly {auUco\ or of the Court, because,
if the Italians had a Court, the language would reign
there as County Palatine, it being of necessity that all
who reside in a Court should speak the volgare illustre,
or language of the Court. Having no Court, it has
ensued that our volgare illustre seeks refuge as a
wanderer, now in this lonely dwelling and now in that,
having no abode worthy of it.
' Chapter xvii., p. 191.
II Volgare Italiano Illustre 65
' Finally, it is called forensic or judicial, because it
serves as a measured rule for the things which have to
be done ; and as the accurate measure is only to be
found in the most excellent court (of justice), it happens
that all that which is well weighed in our actions and
conformable to the law may be termed forensic, or
judicial.
' This language, then, which should be at once illus-
trious, cardinal, stately and judicial, we declare to be the
volgare Italiano.''^
Here ends the first book, perhaps the most
important of the two, because it lays before us,
down to every quaint detail, the dialects of
Italy in the untutored rudeness of the Middle
Age.
In the second book we find the great master of
the language, pen in hand,^ diligently at work
upon his elaborate and self-imposed task. That
* II Volgare Italiano illustre' is adapted alike for
verse and prose is his first axiom. But as those
who write in prose are wont to model their lan-
guage upon that employed by the troubadours, it
is well to examine whether all who write in verse
are entitled to the use of this polished style. It
is only properly employed by men of science and
intellect, because it should be reserved for the ex-
pression of noble ideas and noble themes, of which
such men alone can be the originating source. It
does not belong to the rough and common herd
' Chapter xix., lib. i.
- ' Kilornando al calanio della utile opera,' lib. ii., c. i.
66 Dante at Ravenna
of versifiers, of whom there are many, who make
verses without either science or intellect. And as
without science or intellect the mind must be
barren of noble themes for verse, so, Dante
argues, this stately style is not for them.
' And when it is argued that each poet should adorn
his verse as much as possible, we admit that to be true,
but, at the same time, if we saw an ox in a saddle with
housings, or a pig girt with a sash, we should not think either
of them adorned ; but, on the contrary, that their ugliness
was only further enhanced, ornament being nothing else
than the addition of something befitting the object to be
adorned. Again, to those who urge that the combining
of the inferior with the superior will produce perfection,
I reply that is also true when the two commingle and do
not remain separate. As, for example, if gold and silver
were blended together, but if the two parts remain sepa-
rate, then the inferior, by comparison with the superior
element, only appears more vile. Therefore, if the theme
for versification does not lend itself to the words, instead
of being enhanced by an ornate style, its unworthiness
is only the more accentuated, just as an ugly woman
appears to worse advantage when bedizened in silk and
gold.'i
The question naturally follows as to what are
fitting subjects for the volgare illustre, which,
* being in itself excellent, can only treat of things
excellent.' These are resolved by the author under
three heads, briefly stated : Feats of Arms, Love,
' Lib. ii., c. i., pp. 189, 190.
' La Teseide ' 67
and Righteousness. All have been treated by the
great poets of the da}^ and examples are cited as
to feats of arms from the Gascon warrior
troubadour Beltram di Bornio/ as to love from
Arnaldo Daniello,- as to righteousness Gerardo
di Borniello. Again, of love, Cino da Pistoja ;
again, of righteousness, the * friend of Cino da
Pistoja' {i.e., Dante).
* As yet, so far as I know,' Dante concludes, * no
Italian has sung of arms.'
It was not long, however, before Boccaccio
took up this challenge, and supplied the de-
ficiency in his ' Teseide,' i.e., Duke Theseus
against the Amazons, whence Chaucer borrowed
in part his ' Knight's Tale.' He plumes himself
on having filled the vacant place in the eighty-
fourth stanza of the last book of the poem.
' But thou, O Book ! be thou the first to tell
Of feats of Mars ; how warriors fought and fell
In vulgar parlance of the Latium tongue —
Deeds that till now remained unknown, unsung;
And as thou art the first whose keel will leap
Through the wide waste of trackless waters deep,
Ploughing through waves that ne'er were ploughed be-
fore,
^ 'Sappi ch' io son Beltramo dal Bornio, quelli
Che al Re giovane diede i inai comforti.'
Inf., xxviii. 134, 135.
^ ' Li dolci detti vostri
Che quanto durera 1' iiso moderno
Faranno cari ancora i loro inchiostri.'
Purg., xxvi. 112-115.
5—2
68 Dante at Ravenna
Thou in all lowliness niayst pass them o'er,
And from the novel subject of thy lays
Mayst share with others honour, fame and praise.'^
Of the five illustrations drawn from the writers
of the time," we select a few of the verses by
Guido Guinizzelli, justly honoured by Dante as the
father of Tuscan rhyme, on account of their per-
fection both as to manner and matter:
' Al cor gentil ripara sempre amore,
Siccome augello in selva la verdura :
Non fu Amore anzi che gentil core,
N^ gentil core anzi ch' Amor, Natura :
Ch' adesso come fu '1 Sole,
Si tosto lo splendore fue lucente ;
Ne fu davanti al Sole :
E prende Amore in gentilezza loco,
Cosi propriamente,
Com, il calore in clarit^ del foco.
' Fuoco d' Amore in gentil core s' apprende,
Come vertute in pietra preziosa,
Che dalla stella valor non discende,
Anzi ch'l Sol la faccia gentil cosa ;
Poi che n'ha tratto fuore
Per la sua forza il Sol cib, che gli e vile,
La Stella i dh. valore :
Cosi lo cuor, che fatto e da natura
Schietto, pur, gentile,
Donna a guisa di Stella lo' nnamora.
• ♦ La Teseide,' lib. iv., 84.
2 V. E., lib. ii., c. v., 215.
Guido Guinizzelli 69
' Amor per tal ragion sta in cor gentile,
Per qual lo foco in cima del doppiero ;
Splende al suo diletto, clar, sottile,
Non gli staria altra guisa tanto e fiero :
Perb prava natura
Incontr' a amor fa come 1' aigua al fuoco,
Caldo per la freddura :
Amore in gentil core prende rivera ;
Perocchi simil luoco ;
Come adamas del ferro in la minera,' etc.^
Translation.
* Like as the birds to depths of sylvan grove,
So to the gentle soul comes hastening love ;
Nor without gentle soul can such love be,
Nor without love the soul's gentility.
Swift as the sun appears with glitt'ring ray.
So swiftly Nature dons her mantle gay ;
Nor was her splendour previous to the sun.
Thus blend the gentle soul and love in one,
So of necessity
Must heat by clearest flame engendered be.
' Fire of love pertains to gentle heart
As virtue doth of precious stone make part ;
Celestial powers fall not from the star
Till they by solar influence fashioned are.
When his magnetic ray
All that is vile or mean hath purged away.
Then from that radiant star
Virtue and worth derived infused are.
So to the gentle heart
Fair lady's glance like star doth love impart.
^ ' I'vime fli diversi Antichi Toscani di Guido Guinizzelli,' pp. 288,
280. Guido Guinizzelli, f. 1220.
70
Dante at Ravenna
' In gentle heart it follows love must stay,
As on the burnished helm the glancing ray ;
Subtle the glint which darts from side to side,
And such the guise beseeming love's true pride.
The nature mean
Towards love as magnet in the fire is seen,
Cold 'mid the heat ;
Love and the gentle heart together meet —
The place akin —
As iron drawn by loadstone's power unseen,' etc.
The interest of these lines is further enhanced
by Dante's own reference to them in his tenth
sonnet. On being asked to define the nature of
love, he wrote as follows :
' Amor e cor gentil son una cosa
Siccome 11 saggio in suo dittato pone
E cosi senza 1' un 1' altro esser osa
Come alma razional senza ragione.'^
' Love and the gentle heart agree in one :
Thus into verse by poet sage 'tis done ;
As lief without the other one dare be.
As without reason reasoning soul we see.'
He is, moreover, the poet referred to in the
Hnes of the ' Purgatorio ' as having been robbed
of his fame by Guido Cavalcanti :
' Cosi ha tolto r uno all' altro Guido
La gloria della lingua ;'
' Thus hath one Guido from the other snatched
The letter'd prize ;'
^ Sonnet x., ' II Canzoniere di Dante Alighieri,' p. 99.
* La Rettitudine ' 71
while the concluding line of the passage is
supposed to refer to Dante himself :
* e forse e nato
Chi r uno e 1' altro caccera dal nidoi'
' And he perhaps is born
Who shall drive either from their nest.'^
But to return to the theme chosen by Dante,
* La Rettitudine,' for it furnishes the solution of
apparent inconsistencies in the * Divina Corn-
media,' and the explanation of what is dark and
obscure. Inwardly convinced of the power of a
native language, he made use of it while yet in its
roughness, not with the object of perfecting
romantic poetry nor of illustrating the theme of
love, nor yet to flatter those in power, but with
the purpose of elucidating the hidden depths of
philosophy and theology, taking for his foundation
the system of sacred monarchy which he had
evolved. Therefore, instead of relying upon pagan
authors, he borrows both imagery and method
from the Psalms, the Canticles, the Apocalypse,
and the Prophets. If we examine the * Divina
Commedia ' attentively, it becomes at once
evident that it resembles in no way the Greek
and Latin classical methods of construction, either
in space, time, or the action to be represented.
With Dante the space is no less than the whole
creation — all the known world which he covers
in his journey from the centre of the earth to the
1 ' Purg.,' xi. 97, et seq.
72 Dante at Ravenna
planets, thence to the stars, and even beyond them.
As in all that space there must be some connect-
ing-link, we have the strange conception of a
gigantic Lucifer, who, falling head downwards
from the spheres, displaces the surface of the
globe in depth and extent sufficiently to invert
the Mount of Purgatory, whose summit is lost in
the clouds as it joins the first of the planets.
Thus, the gradation of the heights of the * Purga-
torio ' is in proportion to the depths of the
* Inferno,' and no less marvellous, producing a
scheme of architecture as novel as it is awe-
inspiring.
Then, if we consider how these three realms are
peopled, and that to each inhabitant is justly
apportioned either punishment, probation, or
reward, it becomes evident that the eternal
principles of truth and justice govern that distri-
bution. Nor are these principles warped, as a
superficial observer might think, by human
passions. The punishments are not meted out to
the enemies of Uante because they were his
enemies — in many cases, notably that of Brunetto
Latini, his dear and honoured master, the sufferers
were his friends — but because they had sinned
against that principle of righteousness which
was his theme. Like Milton, who followed him,
it was the ' great argument ' by which he meant to
' Assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.''
' ' Paradise Lost,' c. i.
La Drittura 73
Under the name of La Drittura, Righteousness
appears again in the ' Canzoniere,'^ and, with
reference to the disordered state of Italy, is made
thus to reply to Love's question as to who she is :
' lo, che son la piu trista
Son suora alia tua Madre, e son Drittura
Povera, vedi, a panni ed a cintura.'
Love is here meant to personate the Love of
Virtue, whose mother is Justice, while the
tattered and dilapidated and poverty-stricken
condition of Drittura, i.e.. Righteousness, illus-
trates the strife and confusion of the world at
that moment.
Having disposed of the subject-matter adapted
for a lofty style, Dante proceeds in his deliberate,
methodical way to treat of the manner. Putting
aside prose, he devotes his attention to the three
forms of poetry then in use: the sonnet, the
ballad, and the canzone ; and of these three the
canzone, in his opinion, bears away the palm.
Therefore, leaving the discussion of the ballad
and the sonnet for the fourth book, which, as we
know, was never written, he devotes himself to
the examination of the canzone. He distin-
guishes briefly the three styles — the tragic, the
comic, and the elegiac.
Again relegating these two last to the fourth
book, he deals with the tragic style, the highest
of all, and destined for the highest theme.
' ' II Canzoniere ' xix., p. 206.
74 Dante at Ravenna
It befits no other, and
' Let no one who attempts cither theme or style think
that the task can be accomphshed without natural gift,
great assiduity, and perfect knowledge of the art. Such
have been truly described by the poet of the " Aineid " as
blessed of the gods, and as immortal sons of the gods
let them speak. Palpable, on the other hand, is the
folly of those who without science or art rely only upon
their own natural talent to attempt to sing the highest
themes : let them cease from their presumption, and if
from idleness or lack of study they are nothing but
geese, let them not attempt to imitate the flight of the
eagle. '^
The succeeding chapters deal with the me-
chanical construction of rhyme and verse, treating
at length of the words, the verses, stanzas, and
rhymes, preparing, as he says, the wood for the
faggot and the cords, that he may show how the
bundle, that is, the canzone, should be united.
To the verse of eleven feet he gives the palm,
both on account of the occupation of time,
capacity of sentence, construction and choice of
words. Dante says that the learned have all been
aware of this, and their noblest poems open in
this manner.
Verses, we are told, are beautiful when they
close in rhyme ; but the poet should have free
license to arrange them according to his own
talents if it makes a harmonious rhythm and
avoids repetition.
' Lib. ii., c. iv.
' Amor che nella mente mi ragiona ' j^
He cites the translations from the troubadour
poets of his time, most of whom are familiar to
us either by name or allusion in the * Divina
Commedia.'
Gerault de Borneil, who calls his lady-love
'MonSobreTos'i
('Mio sopra tutti');
the King of Navarre, Tebaldo II. :
' Dreit Amor oh' en men cor repaire.'-
(' Dritto Amore che in mio core ripara ') ;
Folchetto di Marsala •?
' Tam m' abelheis 1' amorosos pensameno '
(' Tanto m' abbelisce 1' amoroso pensamento ');
ending always with Cino da Pistoja and ' his
friend,' whose noble canzone*
' Amor che nella mente mi ragiona '
is the song, set to the sweet music of Casella,
sung by the spirits in the * Purgatorio.'^
' Do not be surprised,' he concludes, ' my reader, that
I have cited so many examples from so many authors,
because it is not possible to judge of the construction of
^ 'Purg.,' xxvi. I20. 'Quel di Limosl' (he was a citizen of
Limofjes).
- * Inf.,' xxii. 52. Ciampolo says : ' Poi fui famiglio del buon Re
Tebaldo.'
* ' Par.,' ix. 94, 95 :
• Folco mi disse quella gente, a cui
Fu nolo ii nome mio.'
* No. xii., ' Canzonieie.' '•' 'Purg.,' ii. 112.
76 Dante at Ravenna
the highest style without some illustration of its perfec-
tion. In truth, to obtain a real mastery over style, it
would be a most useful study to refer to the classical poets,
such as Virgil, the " Metamorphoses " of Ovid, Statius
and Lucan ; also to those who have written prose in the
great style, such as TuUius, Livy, Fliny, Frontinus, Paulus
Orosius, and many others, to the study of whose works
our own solitude is friendly.'^
These studies must certainly have compre-
hended the *Ars Poetica ' of Horace, from whom
Dante borrowed largely in his treatment of rhyme
and metre, and the ' Rhetoric ' and ' Poetics ' of
Aristotle, his revered master, whose Praise is
summed up in the single line,
' II Maestro di color che sanno.'
Inf., iv. 131.
Evidently such were his great models as to
the choice of subjects adapted for poetry, and
the method of dealing with them. The quota-
tion from chapter vii. of the first book of the
' Volgare Eloquio ' runs parallel^ with the chapter
in * Rhetoric' ' Of the Becoming in Style,' and the
chapters in the ' Poetics' ' On Diction '^ have laid
the ground for the suggestions in the ' Volgare
Eloquio ' as to the choice of words.
' Many, O reader, are those which must be sifted from
your vocabulary, so that only the highest and best may
^ ' II Volgare Eloquio,' lib. ii., c. vi.
* Aristotle's ' Rhetoric,' c. vii.
^ * Poetics,' c. xix.
The Canzone jj
remain in your sieve. . . . All puerile words must be
discarded — words too feminine in their softness, all the
rough harsh dialects of the provinces, all the jabber of
the town.'^
Not to enter into the elaborate discussion
which follows, and which would be wearisome
if reproduced here, the cultivated and polished
citizen is advised to employ words of pure mas-
culine strength for the description of his subject,
adding for ornament words of many and high-
sounding syllables, which will make an excellent
combination.
At last we reach the construction of the can-
zone in chapter viii. In this and the following
chapters the canzone — according to Dante, the
most excellent form of poetry — is described.
The art of the canzone seems to consist in
three things : the division of the subject, the
disposition of the parts, the number of verses and
the syllables. Rhymes do not properly belong
to a canzone, though it is lawful to introduce
them.
In the following chapters are described the
action it should recite, and the method of recital.
The illustration is given from the famous can-
zone of the ' Convito ':
' Donne che avcte intelletto d' amore.'
Rules for the mechanical art of foot and verse
' ' II Volgare Eloquio,' lib. ii., c. vii.
78 Dante at Ravenna
and rhythm, wherewith to interweave the chaplet
of verse, occupy the three next chapters. It is
obvious that these rules must have afterwards
guided Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso in succes-
sion. Tasso, it is known, noted the * Volgare
Eloquio ' with his own hand. But these appear
now to have been quite forgotten in Italy. No
modern writer studies them, and therefore none
are capable of reproducing the classical canzone
of the fourteenth century. Their versi sciolti,
although, as in the case of Aleardo Aleardi,
they often give expression to original and most
poetical imaginings, are a very poor exchange for
the interwoven crown of grace and rhythm,
cadence and melody, which will remain for ever
the charm of the Italian lyrics.
As of the manner so of the matter. The
great Master would have written upon variety of
style, for example, as to one manner being suit-
able for one subject, and another for another ;
only the fourteenth chapter, which was to be
dedicated to this important subject, breaks off in
the middle. The end was either never written or it
has been lost. The fragment that remains recom-
mends discretion in the choice of the argument
to be treated by the Poetic Muse ; that the mode
of versification should be adapted to the theme,
and as all the subject-matter for poetry is capable
of division into two classes, placing the one on
the right hand, and the other on the left, that is
to say, it is sometimes the province of song to
Subject-matter for Poetry 79
persuade, sometimes to dissuade, sometimes it
should move to joy, sometimes to praise, some-
times to blame ;^ therefore, as the words which
treat of things sinister (or on the left hand)
should hurry to their close, so, on the contrary,
those on the right hand should, with suitable
lingering, advance step by step towards their
climax.
Here, as if the pen of the writer were sud-
denly arrested, the chapter breaks off, and the
treatise on the sublime style was therefore never
finished. No more were the two remaining
chapters, which the author intended, as we have
seen, to dedicate to the treatment of the comic
and elegiac styles, in which the ballad and sonnet
would have found their place. Had the work
been complete, Dante would have established
the laws for every kind of composition in the
vulgar tongue, even as he himself said in the
course of the work, down to the common daily
parlance of family life.
But the fragment which remains to us has
been quoted at length, because it contributes in
no small degree to the portrait of Dante, which
' Compare again Aristotle's ' Poetics,' c. iv. :
' But poetry was divided according to appropriate manners. For
men of a more venerable character imitated beautiful actions and the
actions of such men ; but the more ignoble imitated the actions of
depraved characters, first composing vituperative verses in the same
manner as the others composed hymns and encomiums.
♦ • ♦ « •
' Hence also the iambic verse is now called, because in this metre
they used to ianibize, i.e., defame, each other.'
8o Dante at Ravenna
in all his works is more or less drawn by his
own hand. These may be said almost to con-
stitute an autobiography of the man, without
that touch of egotism which seems almost in-
separable from autobiography. Indeed, we find
him so true to his maxim, twice over expressed,^
that a rhetorician should never quote his own
name, that his own is always coupled with that
of Cino da Pistoja as * 1' amico suo,' who chose
for his theme ' La Rettitudine.' For with Dante
his own personality is always second to the work
he undertakes. It is there, unmistakable in its
familiar, severe outlines, but subordinate to the
matter in hand. Original, almost archaic in its
simplicity, is the passage which traces all lan-
guage to its source ; and then suddenly the proud
yet wistful exile stands before us in his regret
that he cannot in justice, notwithstanding his
unalterable love for his country, assign to her
language the coveted distinction of having been
the first language uttered in Paradise.
With the utmost deliberation, step by step, he
proceeds in his careful analysis, and by his
masterly division of the European languages into
groups forestalls in the thirteenth century the
modern methods of comparative philological and
ethnographical research. Then some little touch
of irony in the illustration, like that of the ugly
woman bedizened with gold and silk, the ox in
trappings or the pig in a sash, brings Dante
' ' Convito Trattato,' I., c. ii., p. i ; ' Purg.,' xxx. 63.
' II Volgare Eloquio ' 8 1
before us in his strong sense of humour — or, again,
in his love of order and fitness, when he lays
down the axiom that ' ornament is nothing but
the addition of something befitting the object to
be adorned/ Here we find again forestalled the
keystone of the architecture of the Renaissance.
Dante took nothing for granted. All his work
is drawn from life — the result of personal observa-
tion, personal exertion, personal care. Just as
the phenomena of Nature in every varied phase
of beauty, and at every hour of the day, from the
first silver streak of the dawn to the last ray of
the setting sun, became familiar to his eye in his
nineteen years of wandering, suggesting reflec-
tions and illustrations which are set like pearls
along the thread of his great conception of the
' Divina Commedia,' so to the same causes may
be attributed his oral acquaintance with all the
dialects of Italy.
From the friendly and beautiful solitude of the
Castello of Tolmino, where he probably took
refuge from the harsh accents of Aquileja, to
Padua, thence to Bologna, through the Romagna
and Puglia, where yet lingered the cultivated
influence of the Court of Frederick II. and Manfred
his son, the ear attuned to the melody of Casella,
which in the ' Purgatorio' could anticipate the
celestial harmony of the spheres, caught and
noted, one by one, the characteristics of each
/Jialcct, sifted and classified them all.
We have seen that Dante took the Tower of
b
82 Dante at Ravenna
Babel and the confusion of speech for his starting-
point in his treatise on the * Volgare Eloquio,' and
there is a dramatic unity of purpose highly charac-
teristic of his mind in the intention which he so
adequately fulfilled of fusing again into one
language the various dialects of Italy.
But the great Master did more yet. He taught
by example as well as by precept. Not only did
he create the Italian language out of the raw
material of jargon and dialect, but he secured
for that language immortality when he wove it
into such a chaplet of verse as must for ever
remain the birthright and the inheritance, as of
the past, so of every future generation.
' Del bel Paese la dove il si suona.'
/«/[, xxxiii. 80.
' In that fair region, where the Italian voice
Is heard.'
Gary, Trans.
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE AND PUPILS AT RAVENNA
6—2
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE AND PUPILS AT RAVENNA.
' Dimmi, Maestro mio, dimmi, Signore.'
Inf., iv. 46.
THE biographers are not in accord as to
the exact locahty of Dante's house in
Ravenna, but there is no doubt that he
had one assigned to him by Guido Novello,
where he might Hve in undisturbed peace, and,
free from all molesting cares, pursue his great
work.
It was also the centre of a little circle of
friends and pupils, whom he taught, and whose
boast it was to have received instruction in poetry
from him.
Five centuries have learnt from the written
words of Dante ; but who were the pupils who
hung on his living lips? Foremost among them
stands the remarkable figure of Guido da Polenta,
whose reverence for his master was such as may
be best expressed by the well-known line that * ne'er
from son to father more was owed.'^
' 'Che piu non dee a padre alcun figliuolo.'
Purg., i. II.
86 Dante at Ravenna
This veneration is all the more remarkable as
the Polentani cannot be said to have been favour-
ably dealt with in the ' Divina Commedia.'
With regard to the principal episode connected
with them, that of Francesca da Rimini, the
aunt of Guido Novello, there was no doubt that
Guido was himself familiar with the famous lines
which describe her story, as he imported one of
them, ' Che mai da me non fia diviso,' into one of
his own sonnets.^
Moreover, it might be reasonably urged that
the handling of the narrative by Dante, and the
unrivalled pathos which he imparts to it, might
go far to reinstate the unfortunate Francesca in
the opinion of posterity. It certainly gave the
keynote to one of the earliest historical narratives
of the event as recounted by Boccaccio.^
But apart from this episode, which can of
course be considered in two ways, the family of
the Polenta are rigidly dealt with by Dante.
They are not exempted from the fierce invectives
against the tyrants of the Romagna, into which
category also falls the family of Caterina, the
wife of Guido Novello. She was descended from
the Bagnacavalli, a family specially singled out
for vituperation in the * Inferno,' in words which
could be hardly pleasing to their surviving
descendant.^ Nevertheless, so strong was the
Sonnet xii., 'Ultimo Rifugio,' p. 384.
' II Comento di Giovanni Boccaccio sopra la Commedia,' vol. i.,
76, lezione xx.
p. 476, lezione xx.
^ 'Inf.,' XXX. 76-78.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 87
love of letters and learning, so great the venera-
tion inspired by the personality of the poet,
blended, perhaps, with a feeling of compassion for
his unmerited and unhappy exile, that there seems
to have been no place left for rancour in the mind
of the generous Polentani. Far from this, the
hospitality to the father extended itself to the
son, and benefactions were heaped upon Pietro
di Dante by Caterina and her family. Such
generosity makes a bright spot in the dark annals
of a period when revenge for injuries received
was a matter of course, and, far from being a vice,
even aspired to a place on the borderland of
virtue.
The just verdict of posterity recognises the
noble exception afforded by the example of the
Polenta family, and has repaired all former injury
by associating for ever the name of Guido Novello
with that of Dante. Much interest centres round
their relationship as pupil and teacher. There is
historical confirmation of the fact that Guido
Novello learnt from Dante the art of poetry,
described in those days as ' il dire in rime volgare,'
the secrets of which art seem, as we have seen,
to have been comprised in the * Volgare Eloquio,'
and happily there are sonnets by Guido still
extant which serve to prove that he was no
unworthy follower in the footsteps of his great
Master. There is a collection of his verses in the
" Codice Marciano,^ gathered from various sources
' cxci., cl. ix., Ital. Sec. xvi. ' Ultimo Rifugio,' etc., 86, 87.
88 Dante at Ravenna
by a Venetian, Antonio Isidoro Mezzabarba, and
copied, as the note records,
'by my own hand in the month of May, 1509, neither
changing in any way, nor adding to that which I have
found in the ancient books.'
This collection consists of sixteen ballads in
which we discover a certain power as well as
variety of expression not always to be found in
the minor poets of that period, and which recall
the influence of his ^reat Master, more distinctly
to be perceived when compared with his ' Can-
zoniere ' than with his great poem.
We recognise many familar turns of thought
and language besides the one already cited out of
sonnet xii., which finds its counterpart in the
episode of Francesca da Rimini, and which for
that reason is reproduced at length :
' Era r aer sereno e lo bel tempo
Et cantavan gli augei per la rivera,
Et in quel giorno apparve primavera
Quand' io te vidi prima bella gioia.
Ben fosti gioia, che tal m' apparisti
E CO '1 novo color nel tuo bel viso,
Che gih, da la mia mente non si parte,
E quando sono in piii lontana parte,
Piu mi sovvien de '1 tuo piacente riso
Si dolcemente ne '1 mio cor venisti
Per un soave sguardo che facisti,
Da tuoi begli occhi, che mi mirar fiso
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 89
Si che gia da me non fia diviso
Tanta allegrezza mi da fuor di noia.'^
' Serene the air, and sweet the happy time,
When spring appears — the glad year's fairest part —
And on the banks the birds rang tuneful chime
When first I saw thee, jewel of my heart !
Jewel ! Ah yes ! x\s such thou didst appear
When the fair colour flashed across thy face,
And never leaves my thoughts that vision dear.
When far away, in sad and lonely case,
I most bethink me of thy radiant smile ;
And straight into my inmost heart doth come,
In memory fond, that sweetest glance erewhile
Shot from thine eyes — and, piercing, found its home.
Henceforth divided never can we be,
And joy from grief's sad clutch doth ransom me.'
To cite one more example especially pleasing on
account of the grace of thought and diction :
' Quando specchiate. Donna, il vostro viso
II cor del vostro servo
Vedete com' e fatto e dove e miso.
Come del viso al specchio ogni bellezza
Vi si mostra compiuta,
Cosl fermate '1 cor da la chiarezza
Quella cor desiosi occhi sentuta;
Si che non e fattezza
Nel viso bel, che 'n lui non sia veduta,
Onde r onesto sguardo c '1 dolce riso
Con la forza d' Amore,
II tiene in quel, da lui sempre diviso. '-
' ' Ultimo Rifugio,' appendix, quoted from Cod. Marciano, cxci.,
w. I, 2. Hallatc di Guido da Polenta.
* Ibid., XV.
90 Dante at Ravenna
' Lady, when in thy face thy servant's heart,
As in a mirror, clear reflected lies,
See how 'tis formed, and look on ev'ry part ;
As the reflection with the object vies
So read thy servant's heart in thine own eyes,
And see him stand reflected in thy sight.
There is no feature in thy own fair face
Which calls not forth an answer from thy knight.
Thy smile, thy look, command an answering grace.
And Love, thy willing servant. Lady fair,
E'en though apart, must ever hold him there.'
The cultured and refined taste which could in
the midst of a barbarous age find expression in
such delicate forms of thought was not less
susceptible to the influence of the sister art of
painting. It is no uncertain tradition which
records that at the instance of Guido da Polenta
Giotto was summoned to Ravenna by Dante.
We may please ourselves with fancying these
two friends the great types of the highest attain-
able perfection in the sister arts in the thirteenth
century, following and interpreting each other
more and more in the close harmony of a friend-
ship which had deepened with advancing years.
In process of ripening when both were at Rome
in the year of the jubilee, 1300, it had matured
itself in that brief interval between the return of
Dante to Florence and his fatal embassy to
Boniface VIIL^
The record of that period of their friendship
^ Vide ante, p. 29.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 91
remains in the authentic contemporary portrait
of the poet, introduced by Giotto into his fresco,
on the walls of the Bargello, representing the
arrival of Charles of Valois as the pacificator of
Florence. This famous incident in the feud
between the Bianchi and Neri resulted, as it is
well known, in the perpetual exile of Dante. But
by a strange irony of fate his painted semblance,
as portrayed by the hand of his friend, remains
as a perpetual spectator of the event so fatal to
his hopes. The episode is represented, moreover,
on the walls of the Palazzo whence issued the
harsh and often-repeated decrees of perpetual
banishment.
Many years of exile had passed over that head
when the two friends met again, and Giotto must
have gazed once more upon the face so faithfully
delineated by him in the prime of manhood and
the flush of fame. It is sad that no portrait should
be extant by the same hand representing that
same countenance as it must have appeared then,
wan with long years of persevering study,^ dark-
ened with disappointed hope, furrowed with the
hardships of his wandering life! And yet through
all must have blazed the unquenched fire of
genius — above all, the ennobling influence of a
lifelong converse with things Divine. Such a
portrait Giotto, and only Giotto, the contem-
porary artist, the companion mind, the beloved
' ' Si che m' ha fatto per piii anni macro.'
Par., XXV. 3.
92 Dante at Ravenna
and intimate friend,^ might have painted. Alas
that such a portrait does not form part of the few
{genuine fragments of Giotto's work in Ravenna !
All that now exists is to be found in the side-
chapel of San Giovanni Evangelista, representing
the Evangelists with their symbols, and the Latin
Fathers of the Church — SS. Gregory, Ambrose,
Augustine, and Jerome. These have been so
repainted that the original work makes itself felt
with difficulty through the gray film which
defaces it.
Once the Church of Sta. Maria in Porto Fuori
was all covered with paintings by Giotto ; not one
trace of them remains. But the beautiful work
of his pupils, Giuliano, Giovanni, and Pietro da
Rimini, has been recently redeemed from the
whitewash which defaced it by the patient effort
of Don Pio Pozzi, the priest in charge of the
church, revealing certain characteristics of type
which indicate both Giotto and Dante among
the bystanders in the frescoes of the Presentation.
Although this representation of the two friends
can only rest upon tradition, contemporary
evidence will furnish historical proof of the
actual presence of Giotto in Ravenna at that
time.
The chain is unbroken. First of all we find the
record of a sum of 300 scudi, bequeathed by
Lamberto da Polenta in his will bearing date
January 18, 13 16, for the express purpose of
^ Vasari : ' Di cui era moltissimo aniico ;' vol. i., p. 372.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 93
restoring the fabric of San Giovanni Evangelista.
Next in order we read of the determination of
Guido Novello, the immediate successor of Lam-
berto, to summon Giotto through the agency of
Dante to undertake the decorative part of the
work. Finally, there is the treatise composed
by Rainaldo Concoreggio, at that time Archbishop
of Ravenna, upon Galla Placidia and her church,
' now about to be rededicated after the completion
of its restoration.'^
This Archbishop forms another figure in the re-
markable group which Dante, the great personality
of Dante, gathered round him at Ravenna. He
came of a noble Milanese family, and studied at
Bologna contemporaneously with Dante. At
Lodi he was offered the post of a Teacher of Law
at the rate of 40 imperial livres a year, to which
ten more were to be added if he succeeded in
obtaining his degree, which he did. Having
subsequently taken Holy Orders, a rapid and
splendid career was immediately open to him,
due in the first instance, no doubt, to the in-
fluence of his powerful family, but ably seconded
by his own great learning and ability. He be-
came chaplain to Boniface VIII., thence was
promoted to the See of Vicenza, and afterwards
was sent to France as Papal Nuncio during the
war between Philip IV. and Edward III. of
England. On his return to Italy, having been
appointed Vicar-General of the Romagna, he
'Mur. Rev. Ilal. Script.,' t. i., part ii., 567.
1 I
94 Dante at Ravenna
went unarmed to mediate between the Ordelaffi
and the insurgent populace of Forli, and was so
severely wounded that his recovery was looked
upon as little short of a miracle. Finally, he
was elected Archbishop of Ravenna, where his
care of his diocese, his zeal in his pastoral office,
his remarkable learning, which he devoted to
reconstructing the decaying schools of theology
and music in Ravenna, and his simple piety,
single him out from among the rapacious and
ambitious clergy of the time, just as Guido da
Polenta stands alone in his cultivation and re-
finement amongst the lawless tyrants of the
Romagna.
It is curious that this Archbishop should have
been so little noticed by the early biographers
of Dante, for it is not an improbable surmise,
though it cannot pretend to even the basis of
tradition, that those great and kindred minds
must have met in intercourse upon the scene of
a common interest like the restoration of the
ancient church of San Giovanni Evangelista.
The Archbishop predeceased Dante by a few
short weeks, or perhaps his name would have
been recorded in a manner less ambiguous than
that of a predecessor in the See of Ravenna,
Archbishop Bonifazio :
' Che pastur6 col rocco molte genti,'^
' ' Purg.,' xxiv. 29, 30, i.e. :
' Who from the revenues of his bishopric fed his flock.'
The rocco was the ancient pastoral staff of the See of Ravenna.
It was so called because, instead of the usual crook in which the
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 95
if, indeed, it had not shared the honours of Pier
Damiano in the ' Paradiso.'^
The sarcophagus to which the remains of Arch-
bishop Rainaldo were consigned, a specimen of
early Christian art, is still to be seen in the
cathedral at Ravenna. Hardly were the funeral
rites completed, when Dante was himself over-
taken by the illness which closed his mortal career.
Guido Novello, the Archbishop Rainaldo, and
Giotto, are the great personal contemporaries of
Dante in Ravenna, and among his pupils Guido
may claim precedence on every ground. With-
in a very short period of each other — indeed, in
a manner almost simultaneous — all these great
characters passed from this world's stage ; but
there were others belonging to either the first
or second category, and sometimes both, who
contributed their meed of interest and no insig-
nificant details to fill in the picture of the time.
We read of Ser Dino Perini, Ser Pietro di Messer
Giardino the notary, Menghino Mezzani the
rhymester, Fiduccio dei Milotti the companion
crozier terminates, it was surmounted by a little shrine, or rocco.
The line refers not only to the government of his people, but to his
large liberalities. These, together with a personal failing, that of
gluttony, must have been etjually a tradition in Ravenna when
Dante was resident there. With characteristic impartiality, both
aspects of the character of the Archbishop are presented in the
' Divina Commedia.' He is assigned a place among the gluttons in
that division of the ' Purgatorio ' where this crime against self is
expiated ; but at the same time is chronicled tlie redeeming virtue
r{ his great liberality to others. He fdled the See of Ravenna for
twenty years (1274- 1294).
' ' Par.,' xxi. 120, et sc<i.
96 Dante at Ravenna
of his walks in the Pineta, who dissuaded Dante
from going to Bologna, Niccolo Carnevalli, Achilla
Mattarclli, and Bernardo Canaccio, who many
years afterwards engraved the epitaph on the
poet's tomb.
It may be asked how these names have been
preserved through the long tract of centuries,
and it is satisfactory, and at the same time very
interesting, to trace them sometimes under a
feigned classical name in the Latin eclogues
written by the poet himself from Ravenna to
Giovanni del Virgilio. Giovanni del Virgilio,
so called because of the facility he displayed in
imitating Virgil, was a Bolognese, and held a
school in Bologna, where he received a salary
from the State. He afterwards moved to Cesena,
where he died ; but he was at Bologna when
the remarkable correspondence took place between
him and Dante. This correspondence has already
been alluded to in order to fix the date of Dante's
residence at Ravenna.^
We will now examine it more closely, as from
it, as from a lantern held by the poet himself,
there falls the most certain light upon this period
of his life. The correspondence consists of one
poem, the ' Carmen,' as it is called, of Giovanni
del Virgilio, and three eclogues. The authenticity
of all has been clearly proved,^ and there have
been several recent Italian editions with annota-
^ Vide ante, Introduction p. 11.
2 'Ultimo Rifugio,' p. 68.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 97
tions, from which the following account of them
has been taken. The * Carmen ' opens the cor-
respondence. In the first hexameters, Giovanni
del Virgilio praises Dante for his noble work of
the * Divina Commedia,' the great theme of those
immortal * cantiche :'
' Which in new rhymes the listening age beguile,
Fixing of souls their after-state, the while
Thou from three diverse confines draw'st the veil.
In Pit of Hell the bad their sins bewail,
The penitent in Lethe are washed white,
The blest ascend to realms beyond the light ;'
and then takes him to task for writing in the
vulgar tongue :
' Ah, wherefore theme so grand, so grave, so vast,
Before the vulgar herd dost deign to cast,
And we, the Poets, who thy meaning prize,
Turn towards thee, in longing vain, our eyes :
For well 'tis known the Poet Sage will none
Of people's jargons, were there even one !
And there are thousand such. Till now
None of that Choir, sixth amongst whom thou,^
E'er sung in common parlance, nor yet he
'I'hou foUowedst heavenwards.- Suffer me.
Censor of Poets, greatest among men !
Ah ! suffer me to speak, nor chide my pen.
' ' Inf.,' iv. 102. Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Lucan.
' .SI ch' io fui sesto tra cotanto senno.'
' • Purg. ,' xxii. Statius, whom Dante followed with ^'i^gil round
the fifth cornice of the ' Purgatorio.'
' Seguiva in su gli spirit! veloci.'
7
98
Dante at Ravenna
Throw not with lavish hand thy pearls to swine,
Nor clothe unworthily the Muse divine ;
But still thy verse in such a form unfold
Common to all — all clear thy meaning hold.'
He then implores Dante to address his next
poem to the pacification of Italy, harassed on
all sides and devastated by war, and the follow-
ing lines contain allusions to the principal
historical events of the period, and fix approxi-
mately the date of the correspondence :
' Awake, then ! tell how wings to realms above
His lofty flight the sacred Bird of Jove ;^
Of Lilies lopped by Ploughman's ruthless hand ;^
How writhe 'neath canine fangs the Frison Band f
Tell how Ligurian shore with triumph hails,
Resounding loud, Parthenope's proud sails :
Till Cadiz wake Alcides' giant rock.
And through the world reverberates the shock !
Ister to Fano will repeat thy strain,
x\nd Dido's shores re-echo it again.'"*
But the exact date seems to be fixed by the
lines which describe in the present tense the
siege of Genoa in the winter of the following
year, 13 19.
^ The Eagle of the Empire — this is an allusion to the death of the
Emperor Henry VII., August 24, 1313.
^ The rout of the Florentines by Uguccicne della Faggiola at
Montecabini, August 29, 1315.
'^ The slaughter of the Paduans by Can Grande della Scala
between 1314-1318.
* The triumphant entry of King Robert of Naples into Genoa,
July, 1318, which resounded throughout the four quarters of the
European world.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 99
' E'en now there fills my ears loud din of war,
And threats which menace, both from near and far,
O Father Apennine, thy lofty crest,
And thou Tyrrhenian sea by storms possessed !
O Mars ! what dost thou, scatt'ring wide all peace ?
Then tune thy lyre and bid such discord cease.'
The poetical metaphors, which appear so high-
flown, are supported by the historical narrative
of the events by Muratori, in which he relates
how fiercely the battle raged both by sea and
land round Genoa before the siege was raised
and King Robert able to make his escape to
Avignon.^
Such a subject as this, the eclogue proceeds to
say, treated in Latin verse, and not in the vulgar
tongue, would be worthy of the pen of Dante,
and would obtain for him the laurel crown of
Bologna, whither Giovanni del Virgilio adjures
him to come — in the concluding lines of his
poem — or, if he will not come, will he at least
send him a friendly word, to say the appeal
has not been distasteful to him ? Alluding to
the residence of Dante at Ravenna,
' Su la marina dove '1 Po discende
Per aver pace co' seguaci sui '
{Inf., V. 98, 99),
he is apostrophized as — '
1 • Annali d' Italia,' t. viii., pp. 72, 75, 107, 108.
7-2
loo Dante at Ravenna
* Dweller on banks of Po,^ if hope canst give
That thou wilt come and in my dwelling live,
Some friendly missive send ; nor take amiss
The fevered lines I send to thee with this,
Unworthy crow that dares uplift its note,^
Nor falls abashed before the Swan's proud throat —
Answer, my master, or my prayer fulfil.'
No common interest centres round the reply
of Dante, which was apparently despatched about
the summer of 1319. It is couched in the form
of an eclogue, closely modelled upon the Pastorals
of his great Master, Virgil, to which both the
locality and the circumstances lend themselves
with curious exactitude, the first Pastoral of
Virgil being written from * the lands about
Cremona and Mantua,' when Virgil was in
exile, though afterwards — and here the com-
parison fails — restored to his country. Yet
when Dante wrote his eclogue his hopes were
not yet dead, as we may gather from its wistful
lines. He follows Virgil exactly in his persona-
tion of Tityrus, while to his friend Dino Perini
he gives the name of Melibceus.^ Giovanni del
Virgilio he addresses as Mopsus — * one of two
' Ravenna was at that time surrounded by the various branches
of the great river. The Po di Primaro, the Po di Padoreno, and
the branch called the Padenna, actually flowed through the streets
of the town.
^ Probably imitated from
' And the hoarse raven on the blasted bough.'
Drydkn's Virgil, Pastoral i.
' This is shown by a gloss upon the MS. supposed to have been
written by Boccaccio. Codice Laurenziana, xxix. 8 ; quoted in
' Ultimo Rifugio,' p. 84.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna loi
very expert shepherds at song/ as Dryden tells
us. The classical scholar will pardon a quota-
tion from Dryden's translation of the well-known
opening of the first Pastoral, for the purpose
of showing how much the eclogue of Dante was
influenced by it.
Melibceus speaks :
' " Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse,
You, Tityrus, entertain your sylvan muse ;
Round the wide world in banishment we roam,
Forced from our pleasing fields and native home." '^
Dante opens his eclogue by declaring that
when the poem reached him he was collecting
his pastured goats (Me Pasciute capre'-). He
throws his composition into the form of a
dialogue, which runs thus :
' On the white sheet impressed, the lettered line
Of songs inspired by the heavenly nine
We saw, Melibceus and I, expressed
In graceful terms, and thus to us addressed.
Still as we stood beneath the oak-tree shade,
And of the pastured flocks the reckoning made,
Melibceus-^ spake : " O Tityrus,* my friend,
Speak, then, and tell me what doth Mopsus^ send ?"
And while I laughed, insisting as before,
He pressed his fond entreaties more and more.
' The First Pastoral, or Tityrus and Melibceus, Dryden's
Trans., 1-4.
'•' In the same MS. already cited another gloss substitutes
' scolares ' for ' capre. '
* Dino Perini. * Dante. ' Giovanni dt.1 Virgilio.
I02 Dante at Ravenna
At length, O Mopsus, yielding to his whim
For friendship's sake, I turned and spoke to him :
" Insensate, mind thy flocks, nor vainly heed
Aught else," I said ; " thy utmost care they need." *
But Meliboeus persisting in his demand, Dante
pours forth his idyll, and, declining the invitation
to Bologna, gives free course to the still cherished
hope of return to his country, there and there only
to receive the poet's crown, in terms which run
parallel with the well-known lines in the * Divina
Commedia,'^
' Rather would I wait
Till my own country grant a triumph late.
And laurel wreath for hoary locks prepare —
Locks which erewhile on Arno's banks were fair.'
Meliboeus urges the flight of time, and asks
when will that moment come, to which Tityrus
(Dante) replies again, and that reply indicates
exactly the point which he had reached, at
that time, in the composition of the ' Divina
Commedia ' :
' " When my songs relate
How planets circle round the heavenly gate,
Of souls in bliss the sweet estate shall tell
As of those left in Purgatory or Hell,
Then shall the bay and laurel intertwine
To crown my brows — for, Mopsus, they are mine."
' ' Par.,' XXV. 5 :
' Con altra voce omai, con altro vello
Ritomero Poeta, ed in sul fonte
Del mio Battesimo prendero il Cappello.'
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 103
"But Mopsus," urged Melibceus, "dost not see —
Will not away with words in comedy ?
Such common parlance and such trivial sound
Beseem the women, and with them abound.
So does he write, and to Castalian choir
Blushes that songs like these should e'er aspire !"
He spake thus, Mopsus, then did loud exclaim,
" What power can INIopsus change, or heal his blame ?" '
The allegory which follows of the favoured
solitary sheep, while the rest of the flock repose
under the shadow of a great rock, the sheep
which is to give milk so abundant^ as to fill
ten vessels, is interpreted to mean ten cantos
of the * Paradiso,' as yet unknown to the world,
while the great rock which shelters the rest of
the flock is supposed to represent the mount
of Purgatory.
' One favoured sheep I have, thou knowest well,
So rich in milky store that none can tell
The great abundance. While the flock remain
'Neath the great rock upon the sheltered plain,
Or else in search of food together roam.
Apart and solitary she wanders home.
i>Io shepherd's wand compels her willing feet,
But straightway comes to yield the treasure sweet ;
From the rich source ten vessels overflow,
And these to Mopsus will my labours show.
' The ' abundance ' is intended to represent the abundant, flowing
verse of the ' Divina Commcfba,' called the ' ]5ucolicum Carmen,'
because written in the vulgar tongue, by contrast with the scant
paucity of the Latin eclogues.
I04 Dante at Ravenna
Tend thou the goats, for good teeth will they need
On the hard bread of charity to feed.^
And thus, still sitting 'neath the spreading oak,
And reasoning o'er the words Meliboeus spoke,
We sang and pondered o'er each other's lays,
While in the hut hard by prepared the maize.'
The interesting correspondence continues, for
Giovanni del Virgilio hastens to reply from his
native * cave ' or ' grotto ' in Bologna to the
poet, whose lays have been despatched to him
from the pine forest at Ravenna :
' There, where on meadow's sward of emerald green
The dense, deep shadow of the pines is seen —
Pines that as sentinels in long, dark row
Man the lone coast where Hadrian's breezes blow
Soft as the zephyr o'er the favoured strand ;
Where flow'ring myrtles scent the pleasant land.
And limpid waters, hurrying to the sea,
O'erflow their banks and bid them fertile be :
In such a spot, and 'neath such grateful shade,
E'en there, O Tityrus, thy song was made.
Then Eurus breathed, and o'er the murmuring trees
The echo reached me, borne upon the breeze ;
And through the rocky steep, distinct and clear.
It fell as balsam on my list'ning ear.
The milk I taste — or was it nectar's wine ?
For since the golden age no draught like thine
1 'Come su di sale
Lo pane altrui, e com' e duro calle
Lo scendere e '1 salir per 1' altrui scale.'
Far., xvii. 59, 60.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 105
Can shepherd pond'ring o'er his flocks recall,
E'en though Arcadian pastures bred them all.
Ah ! woe is me, that base and sordid shed,
Should sadly canopy thy honoured head,
Or that thy noble soul should grieve and fret
(Shame on the graceless city, cruel yet !)
O'er flocks which wander homeless on the plain,
While Arno's meadows stretch their shores in vain.
Forgive thy Mopsus, nor shall useless tears
O'erflow mine eyes and conjure up new fears.
Adding fresh torments to thy bitter fate.
Oh, my sweet master 1 on whose words I wait.
Round whom my love in fond embrace doth twine
As wreathes the husband elm, the clinging vine.
Rather let hope in fiatt'ring, fond presage
Bid youth regild the hoary head of age,
Near the baptismal font the feast prepare,
And drop the laurel garland on thine hair.
Ah ! who shall paint the joy and dear delight
When thy loved country dawns upon thy sight !
But as on Time and Chance we patient wait,
Time that doth travel but with heavy gait.
Come thou to me, my tranquil rest to share.
Relax thy mind, and free thy soul from care,
And thought exchange with thought, as friend with
friend ;
Thus in sweet harmony our songs shall blend,
Upon the reed pipe I, take thou the lyre,
As best befits of noble song the sire.
* * * * *
' Here will Hock
Both old and young from sweet Parnassus' rock ;
io6 Dante at Ravenna
Those who would see the honoured face again,
To learn the old and hear thy newest strain ;
Come, then, I pray thee . . .
. . . Mopsus, art thou mad ?
Paltry thy gifts, thy dwelling mean and bad.
Can these with Jolas'^ palace proud compare ? —
Jolas, who tends his guests with courteous care ;
And yet again Hope spreads her fiutt'ring wings.
Still 'neath thy feet the ciuick desire springs.
Hast ever seen a maid with fond delight
Behold a child, what time the child's keen sight
Follows a bird, the bird the waving trees —
Trees which all eager wait the fresh'ning breeze ?
Ah, Tityrus ! to thee in such a guise
Doth Mopsus turn his ever-longing eyes.
Despise him not, but come, for it is said
Love born of sight by sight is also made.'
In a second eclogue, Dante meets and replies
to the poetic effusion of his friend. We read
first, in the opening lines, of Meliboeus running
and panting with eagerness to bring him the
missive from Giovanni del Virgilio. And then
another friend comes upon the scene, to whom
Dante gives the name of Alfesibeo. He was
in reality Fiduccio dei Milotti,- by birth a
Tuscan of Certaldo, but at that time a doctor
of medicine in Ravenna — a favourite companion
of Dante in his walks in the Pineta, who warned
him against leaving Ravenna for Bologna, and
^ Name chosen for Guido Novello.
- Noted in the margin of the MS. as follows : ' Magister Fiducius
de' Milottis de Certaldo, Medicus, qui tunc, morabatur Ravenna.'
— ' Ultimo Rifugio,' p. 105.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 107
who in all probability, as he survived Dante,
must have attended him in his last hours.
But to return to the eclogue. The hour of
the day, and this time it is the full mid-da)^
heat of the sun, is indicated in one of those
semi -mythological, semi -astronomical descrip-
tions which so often recur in the pages of the
' Divina Commedia ' — Tityrus and Alphesibaeus,
taking pity on the flock and themselves, have
fled from the heat of the town into the out-
skirts of the forest, and there
' 'Neath shade of lime and plane and ashtree gray
The lambs and kids in mixed confusion lay ;
And, Tityrus, above thy aged head
A maple's boughs their shelt'ring welcome spread ;
Thy weary limbs doth knotty staff sustain,
Cut from the pear which in the earth had lain.
Alphesibaeus spake, and smoothly flow
His lucid reasonings, as he would show
That souls which from the stars receive their force
Must to those stars return in Nature's course,' etc.
The translation is not pursued, because all
readers of the * Divina Commedia ' will be
familiar with the passages which treat the same
subject, only at greater length and with more
mastery.^ But it is interesting to see how
strictly Dante adheres to his model Virgil, for
the discussion of the Platonic philosophy by
Alphesibaius finds a close parallel in the
' • I'ury.,' XXV. 52, el scq. ' Par.,' iv. i, el scq.
io8 Dante at Ravenna
description by Silenus of the formation of the
universe and the origin of animals according to
the Epicurean philosophy.
' He sang the secret seeds of Nature's frame,
How seas and earth, and air, and active flame
Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall
Were blindly gathered in this goodly ball,' etc.
Dryden's Virgil^ Pastoral vi.
Dante, continuing the imaginary dialogue, puts
these words into the mouth of Alphesibaeus :
' " Revered old man, dost dare to leave again
The dewy meadows of Pelorus' plain.
And seek the darkness of the Cyclops' cave?"
*' My friend, what fear'st thou for me, what wilt have?"
" Oh, my sweet master ! prythee with us stay,
Nor heed the voice which would thee lure away ;
Climb not the steeps of Etna's shaggy rock —
The forest nymphs forbid — thy loving flock,
Sad and bereaved, their master's loss bewail ;
Hill, wood, and stream repeat the same sad tale." '
By Pelorus he indicates the plain round
Ravenna, as by the rocks of Etna the approach to
Bologna, and any modern traveller will recognise
without effort the justice of the comparison. But
on account of his great love for Mopsus these
objections would not have weighed with him did
he not fear the giant Polyphemus.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 109
' " Though Etna's craggy steeps compare in vain
With the smooth fragrance of the smiling plain,
Yet, Mopsus, as for thee my heart doth burn,
To thee, by love impelled, my steps would turn ;
E'en my loved flock would leave behind me here.
But for thee, Polypheme, whose wrath I fear "
" And who," Alphesiba^us spoke again,
" Did such as Polypheme e'er fear in vain ?
Horrid the monster, deaf to prayer or tear,
And wont with gore his tangled locks to smear.
Aye, Galatea, since that fatal day
When done to death his victim Acis lay,
And thou, in breathless terror's rapid flight,
Didst scarce evade the giant's eager sight.
Can love with such o'erwhelming force contend ?
Bethink thee well of the forgotten friend
In Cyclops' cave, Achemenides left
In dire distress, alone, of hope bereft,
His soul aghast, for there before his eyes,
Stained with his comrade's blood, the monster lies !
The gods forbid !" thus Alphesibaeus said,
" Go not, my life. Ah ! spare thy honoured head,
Nor heed Bologna's Naiad when she weaves
Of laurel garland the perpetual leaves."
And thus, O Tityrus, into thy mind
Sank words of wisdom and entreaties kind,
Unheeded not they fell, nor without force.
But see, the car of Phoebus turns its course.
Cleaving so fast, in its descent, the skies.
That broad upon the earth the shadow lies.
Homewards, behind their flocks, their way
The shepherds take, while fades the dying day —
Flocks which, returning from the valleys cold
1 1 o Dante at Ravenna
And distant woods, already seek the fold ;
The shaggy goats the bleating troop precede.
Meanwhile hard by, where ends the flow'ry mead,
Jolas the wise the long discourse had heard,
And there, unseen, had noted every word ;
Each word to us he showed in meaning plain.
Which we to thee, O Mopsus, tell again. '^
Various conjectures have been hazarded as to
who this giant is meant to represent, whether
Romeo de' Pepoli, at that time Tyrant of Bologna,
King Robert and the Guelph party generally, or
a certain ' Zenga,' a contemporary of Dante, and
a descendant of the Venetico, and Ghisolabella
Caccianimici of the * Inferno,'- eager to avenge
the insults of the poet.
Whoever it was that the giant was intended to
personate, Dante thought it wiser to abide by the
counsel, either real or feigned, of ' Alfesibeo,' and
to stay at Ravenna under the protection of his
kind friend and patron, Guido Novello, referred to
in the last eclogue under the name of Jolas. True
to his imitation of Virgil throughout, the name of
Jolas was chosen on account of the friendship
between Jolas and i^neas.
It has been thought worth while to analyze
carefully the Latin correspondence between
Giovanni del Virgilio and Dante, because those
who have the patience to unravel the somewhat
stilted classical similitudes which were the
' ' II Canzoniere di Dante Alighieri uggiuntori le Egloghe Latine
di Giovanni del Virgilio e di Dante Alighieri,' pp. 410, 437.
- ' Inf.,' xviii. 41, 66.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 1 1 1
characteristic of the period will find the clue not
only to the life and friendship of the poet at
Ravenna, but also to the progress of his great
work. For we gather from the correspondence
some very important facts. In the first place,
that early in the year 1319 both the ' Inferno '
and the ' Purgatorio ' were not onl}- completed,
but known and discussed in Bologna, at that time
the principal University of the civilized world, and
the resort of thousands of students.
In the second place, as to the ' Paradise'
More than once we find in the Latin eclogues
ideas and passages which recall some of the best-
known lines of the * Paradiso.' We have seen
that ten cantos were, at all events, completed, for
under the simile of the ' ten vessels of milk '
they were despatched to Giovanni del Virgilio at
Bologna, received, read, and highly approved by
him. There is no actual evidence to prove which
these were, but if we compare the opening of the
tenth canto, where the reader is invited to lift
his eyes to the celestial spheres that he may
' See how thence oblique
Brancheth the circle where the planets roll,'^
with the lines in the eclogue,
' When my songs relate
How planets circle round the heavenly gate,'
' ' Par.,' X. 12-15 '■
' Vedi come da indi sidirama
L' obliquo cerchio che i Pianehi porta,' etc.
112 Dante at Ravenna
it rather suggests itself that the composition had
reached that point, and that the first ten cantos
of the * Paradiso ' were the portion of the poem
despatched to Bologna.
By means of the Latin correspondence we
have gained some acquaintance with Dino Perini
under the name of Meliboeus, and Fiduccio dei
Milotti under the name of Alphesibseus. But the
picture would not be complete without the men-
tion of three other friends and pupils whose
connection with their great Master can be traced
with almost equal certainty, although their names
do not appear in the 'eclogues, Pietro Giardini,
Menghino Mezzani, and Bernardo Canaccio.
Pietro Giardini, whose family dates back to
the beginning of the thirteenth century, had been
for some years a notary in Ravenna before Dante
came to take up his sojourn there. This is
proved by a document in the archiepiscopal
archives dated May i8, 131 1, bearing his signa-
ture. Besides this deed, many others attested by
him are extant to prove his existence in Ravenna
up to the year 1348. We must keep this date
before our minds, because in the year 1346 Boc-
caccio paid one of his visits to Ravenna, and
Pietro dei Giardini claims our very special atten-
tion as the source of the information which Boc-
caccio has collected concerning Dante, as from
the living friend who had seen and held constant
converse with the poet.
From the same source must have been derived
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 1 1 3
those personal characteristics which give such
interest to his description of Dante. These will
be referred to later on, together with the account
of the discovery of the missing cantos of the
* Paradiso ' in the house of Piero di Giardino — a
house much frequented by Dante in his lifetime.
No doubt because of the vital interest attached to
these statements, and all that they involve, the
whole narrative has been the mark for the fiercest
darts of destructive criticism ; but those who care
to follow the comparison of contemporary docu-
ments, which have been brought together in the
last great work upon the period,^ will see that the
researches of the nineteenth century have gone
far to establish the simple statements made by
Boccaccio not twenty-five years after the death
of Dante, as he had himself received them from
the lips of Piero di Giardino, the constant com-
panion and chosen friend of the poet. Nor is
contemporary evidence lacking with regard to
Menghino Mezzani. He was descended from an
ancient family of Mezzano near Ferrara, and was
also a notary at Ravenna when Dante arrived
there in 1317. Deeds bearing his signature, rela-
ting both to the public affairs of the city and the
private matters of the citizens, date from that
year, and arc preserved among the archives. He
was, moreover, associated with other learned
jurists in revising the statutes of Ravenna. But
* ' Ultimo Kifugio,' pp. 204-21S. See also Appendix of Docu-
ments, p. 412.
8
114 Dante at Ravenna
as a pupil of Dante in poetry, as Menghino
Mezzani the rhymester, he is more interesting to
us. Not equal to Guido Novello in imagination,
grace, or power of diction, his verses relating to
the actual events of the period have great value
from a historical point of view. Thrown into
prison, after the banishment of Guido Novello, by
Bernardino da Polenta, his verses written from
his captivity to his friend Antonio da Ferrara give
a piteous account of his sufferings. Antonio da
Ferrara, on his part, comforts him, and holds out
a prospect of escape in a sonnet dedicated to
' Hope ' :
' My friend, I will thou don that fairest robe
Of Hope, who throws her mantle o'er our globe ;
For if thou wilt not, then I say. Beware !
Know that without it mortal life lies bare.
The solace of mankind, did she not stay
When Faith and Charity had fled away ?
Her sisters, made by wickedness to fly
From cruel earth, to seek the kinder sky.
Ah, who would sojourn in this world of ours,
But for the comfort of her succ'ring powers !
False dost thou call her ? Vain the promised dream !
Strike off the promise — how does life then seem ?
Reason should balance chance, then take the blame.
Deceived? To her, and not to Hope, be shame.'
The reply of Mezzani has only been preserved
in a fragmentary form. But it appears from two
preceding sonnets (III., IV.) that their hope
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 1 1 5
was centred, according to the Ghibelline practice
of the period, upon a German dehverer, and in
so doing their reason was certainly ' to blame,'
for it was a vain illusion to expect anything from
that quarter. It is evident that the famous
appeal of their master to * German Albert ' was
fresh in their remembrance, for it is reproduced
word for word in the sonnets which vituperate
his successor, Charles of Luxembourg, in Caesar's
seat.
But, like his predecessors, Charles of Luxem-
bourg, laden with the spoils of Italy, returned
to Germany, ' more intent,' as the historian says,
' upon robbing Italy of her money than upon
healing her divisions ' ;^ and Menghino Mezzani,
like Dante before him, was obhged to seek com-
fort in the hope that some unknown deliverer, as
personified by the famous ' Veltro,' would arise —
one who
' Will not life support
By earth, nor its base metals, but by love,
Wisdom and virtue. ... In his might
Shall safety to Italia's plains arise.'
/«/, i. 1 01, Gary, Trans.
It was not till the year 1350, at the death of
Bernardino da Polenta, that Mezzani obtained
his release, and during this captivity, which
lasted many years, he had another correspon-
dent of no less importance than Petrarch, whose
' .Mur., 'Ann. d' Italia,' viii., 291, 292.
8—2
1 1 6 Dante at Ravenna
sonnet, offering him consolation, and Mezzani's
reply, have been preserved in the contemporary
MSS. It is also supposed that the allusion is
intended for him when Petrarch, in his letter to
Boccaccio, refers to
• that old sage of Ravenna who, being fully competent
to decide in such matters, assigns to thee the third place
in our literature.'^
The first place had evidently been assigned
to Dante, and the second to Petrarch. That
he opinion of Mezzani was held in high esteem
appears from the testimony of Coluccio Salutati,
who, in a letter to a friend, speaks of Mezzani
' as known to have been the friend and com-
panion of Dante.'"-
This testimony is of great importance, because
not only does it come from a contemporary
source, supported by documentary evidence, but
there is actually now extant in the Bibliotheque
Nationale at Paris^ a letter from Coluccio Salutati
to Mezzani, addressed as follows : ' Eloquentis-
simi viro domino Menghino Mezano, civi Raven-
nati, amico ignoto carissimo.'
The word ' ignoto ' shows that they had never
known each other personally, nor had they corre-
sponded before this letter, which describes itself
as the first writing which had passed between
' ' Lett. Sen. di F. Petrarca,' vol. i., pp. 274, 283.
■ ' Ult. Kif.,' p. 218.
' MS. Lat. 8572, pp. 25, 26 ; quoted in the * Ult. Rif.,' p. 232.
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 117
them, and to which the reply, if there was any,
has not been preserved. But this single letter
refers to the testimony of a common friend,
Tommaso di Mengardino, from whose lips the
writer had heard that Mezzani
' is not less remarkable for his eloquence than for his
noble, upright life, and that he is a constant student
of the poets and moral writers. To thee' (the letter
continues) ' belongs the power which is the gift of the
auspicious star under which thou wert born, to discourse
of virtue, and to hold in little account those things
which most delight mankind.'^
In another passage this contemporary writer
refers to Mezzani's commentary on the ' Inferno '
and ' Purgatorio ' of Dante,- a work which takes
the shape of an epitome rather than a com-
mentary. It has no merit from a literary point
of view, as it contributes nothing to the history
or explanation of the poem. Nor yet as poetry
does it deserve the name, for it is a sort of
doggerel paraphrase, taking the opening words of
each verse from the original, and completing the
explanation of the text after the commentator's
own fashion, as for example :
' Ibid., p. 235, et seq.
^ The MS. of this work is extant in the Gambaiunga Library at
Rimini, and a portion of it in the Bodleian at Oxford. It was com-
mented on by Professor Crescentino Giannini in the ' Bibliofilo,' Ann.
i., p. 155, and by Luigi Tonini in his pamphlet on * Francesca
da Rimini.'
Ii8 Dante at Ravenna
* Nel mezzo del camin, si trova Dante
Smarrito fuor di via per selva oscura
Et le bramose fiere starse avanti,' etc.
Appetidix to ' Ult. Rif.,' p. i.
Yet, as a literary curiosity and contemporary
work, it is certainly worthy of attention. But
the interest which surrounds Mezzani as a friend
and companion of Dante culminates in the
sonnet addressed to Bernardo Canacci, in which
he pours forth eulogies and thanks for the epitaph
in honour of his dear master :
' Thine, then, at last the pious tribute laid,
Messer Bernardo, at our Dante's feet,
Dearer to him because none else have made,
Of all his other friends, an offering meet.
' In heaven, amid the saints, you win his praise,
And mine, who perish in affliction's fire ;
Such that nor eye nor voice I dare to raise,
Nor can I serve you as I would desire.
' That which the lowliest of all Dantists, I,
May not bestow of honour, praise and fame,
Abashed, I leave to greater minds to try
How they may celebrate his noble name.
' Through thy device that name can never die.
Unless, indeed, first die this iron age ;
Behold thy marble — there where every eye
Can read the lines from off the solid page.
Honour thus paid unto the senseless clay
Of thy great love in life shall fitly say.'
Life and Pupils at Ravenna 1 19
To which Bernardo repHed :
' Pallas the beautiful ! to thee his eye
Thy troubled votary turns with gasping breath,
And, as the last discomfiture draws nigh,
Through thee more constant meets the approach of
death.
' And so St. Lawrence, servant of his God,
Stretched on the bed of pain all patient lay,
And firm as rock the path of sorrow trod,
Nor cast, in cowardice, his crown away.
' So felt the Psalmist, who in bitter grief
Prostrate on earth did mourn the livelong night —
The sometime shepherd, who as wolf and thief
Stole Bathsheba from him who fell in fight.
' So we of less account, in such-like guise.
Can steadfast stand beneath the storms of fate
Until the end be won, or purpose wise
Complete for those who thus can patient wait.
And so, in dear remembrance of thy praise,
I would revive thy hope, thy spirits raise.'
From these two sonnets we can settle approxi-
mately the date of Bernardo Canacci's ' Epitaph
on Dante,' and place it about the year 1350,
which, looking back from our side of the five
hundred years which have elapsed, seems to bring
it sufficiently near to the death of the poet to
invest it with a very significant interest. But by
the surviving contemporaries and friends some
such tribute to his memory must have been
eagerly expected, and this appears from Me2zani's
sonnet, long before it came.
I 20 Dante at Ravenna
The concluding lines of that sonnet, which refer
to the 'great love in life ' entertained by llcrnardo
Canacci for Dante, establish with certainty the
fact of their close and intimate friendship. But
there arc no other facts concerning Bernardo
which can be looked upon as equally certain.
Out of many theories respecting him, the proba-
bilities seem to lie in favour of his having belonged
to a Bolognese family which had migrated to
Ravenna, and that he was one of the many
rhymesters of the Romagna called upon by Guido
Novello to compete for the honour of composing
Dante's epitaph. That he was the successful com-
petitor we have already seen, and in the conclud-
ing chapter the epitaph will be given, with further
details connected with it. Upon that tribute to
the memory of his Master and friend may justly
rest the claim of Bernardo Canacci to the notice
of posterity.
Such were some of the principal characters in
that remarkable group of friends who surrounded
Dante during his residence at Ravenna, sympathiz-
ing with him in the yearnings of his exile, cheering
his solitude, and eagerly watching the progress of
his great work, with, probably, little thought that
their association with him would confer upon
them a share in the immortality of his fame. Yet
in that way only can we account for the details of
their personality which it has been possible to
rescue from oblivion and, after a lapse of more
than five centuries, to reinvest with life.
CHAPTER V.
CLOSING YEARS OF THE LIFE OF DANTE AT
RAVENNA.
CHAPTER V.
CLOSING YEARS OF THE LIFE OF DANTE AT
RAVENNA.
' Quando mi vidi giunto in quella parte
Di mia eta, dove ciascun dovrebbe
Calar le vele e raccoglier le sarte. '
Inf., xxvii. 78-So.
IN the last chapter we have gained some im-
pression of the life at Ravenna contempo-
rary with Dante, and of his own work in the
midst of it, which Boccaccio sums up in one of
his graceful paragraphs :
' Dante then inhabited Ravenna (having lost all hope,
though not the desire, to return to Florence) for some
years, under the protection of a kind and benevolent
patron, and there by his lectures he instructed many
students in the art of poetry, and especially in that of
the vulgar tongue ; being, in my opinion, as much the
first among the Italians to place the language in a
proper position, and to give it a due value, as Homer
was among the Greeks or Virgil among the Romans.
Before him, although it may have been recognised as a
language, no one had either the desire or the courage
to make it instrumental in composition, save that in
I 24 Dante at Ravenna
ballads of love and such-like light matters it was some-
times used. But he proved, and effectually proved, that
it might be employed when treating of the highest sub-
jects, and thus exalted our vulgar tongue, and made it
more glorious than that of any other nation.'^
Although it is obvious that we must not seek
for any reference to the living contemporaries of
Dante at Ravenna in the pages of the ' Divina
Commedia,' more than one passage proves how
deeply his mind was imbued with the past tradi-
tions of the city, from the times of Julius Caesar
and the Emperors down to the great families of
the Traversari and the Anastagi, over whose
recent extinction he deeply grieves, and the out-
lines of whose tombs must have been as familiar
to him as to us. ' Where ' — such is the ex-
clamation he puts into the mouth of Guido del
Duca —
' Where is good Lizio ? where Arrigo Mainardi,
Pier Traversaro" and Guido di Carpigna?'
adding, in the same speech :
' Marvel not, Tuscan, if thou see me weep
When I recall those once-loved names.
*****
With Traversaro's house and Anastagio's
(Each race disherited).'
Purg., xiv. 108.
' Boccaccio, 'Vita di Dante,' p. 27.
* I'ietro de Traversari a Podesta, in Ravenna in 1 177, was a very
great character in early Ravennese history. lie delivered his
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 125
These families, whose names appear in chron-
icles dating from the fifth century, were extinct,
but there were descendants still living of the
family of the Onesti, and their hearts may have
glowed with pride when they found their name
recur in the pages of the ' Paradiso.' First in
order comes San Romualdo degli Onesti, born at
the beginning of the eleventh century, who founded
the Order of the Camaldolese. Placed by Dante
among the contemplative spirits in the seventh
heaven, which is the planet Saturn, he is men-
tioned in the eulogy of St. Benedict :
' These other flames.
The spirits of men contemplative, were all
Enlivened by that warmth, whose kindly force
Gives birth to flowers and fruits of holiness :
Here is Macarius ; Romualdo here ;
And here my brethren who their steps refrained
Within the cloisters, and held firm their heart.'
Par., xxii. 44, et seq.
Next we have Beato Pietro Onesti, called II
Peccatore, who built, in iog6, the Church of Sta.
Maria in Porto Fuori. In the last chapter we
referred to the beautiful frescoes which cover
the walls of the interior ; the exterior is no less
father out of the hands of the Papal Legate, received the Emperor
Frederick on his return from Venice after his humiliation there
before Alexander III., made an expedition to the Holy Land, and
was buried in the Church of S. Giovanni IJatlista. The tomb has
since been moved into the museum.
126 Dante at Ravenna
interesting. Once on the coast, it now stands in
the midst of a green campagna, from which the
sea has receded. The curious and rather clumsy
campanile rises from the quadrangular base of
the old Roman lighthouse of the port whence the
church derives its name.
The remains of the founder still rest in the
ancient marble sarcophagus under an archway on
the left hand of the nave, adorned with the figures
of our Saviour and the Apostles in rude relief.
Pietro Peccatore must not be confounded with
Pier Damiano, another Ravennese saint, born in
1007, who died at Faenza in 1072, and whose life
and works are too well known to be recapitulated
here. Only it is curious that Dante should him-
self have foreseen the confusion which has arisen
between the two saints, and which he tried to
forestall.
Pier Damiano is made by Dante to describe the
]\Ionte Catria and the monastery of Fonte Avel-
lana. This monastery is still to be found nestling
under the side of the mountain in the midst of the
oak glades watered by ever-flowing springs of
limpid clearness, still served by the Benedictine
monks in their white habit, though only three
represent the brotherhood which once peopled the
now silent and deserted cells. Still the room
which Dante occupied remains as it was then ;
and through the same window may be seen the
rolling green swards of the base of the Catria,
that giant of the Apennines, which may well have
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 127
suggested to him the description of the meta-
phorical Mount of Consolation :
' Guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
Vestite gia de' raggi del pianeta
Che mena dritto altrui per ogni calle.'
Inf.^ i. 16.
' I look'd aloft, and saw his shoulders broad
Already vested with that planet's beam
Which leads all wanderers safe through every way.'
And in the ' Purgatorio ' we find the actual
mountain named, and the convent described :
' 'Twixt either shore
Of Italy, nor distant from thy land,
A stony ridge ariseth ; in such sort
The thunder doth not lift his voice so high.
They call it Catria : at whose foot a cell
Is sacred to the lonely eremite :
For worship set apart, and holy rites.
. There
So firmly to God's service I adhered.
That, with no costlier viands than the juice
Of olives, easily I passed the heats
Of summer and the winter frosts, content
In heavenward musings. Rich were the returns
And fertile, which that cloister once was used
To render to these heavens ; now 'tis fallen
Into a waste so empty that ere long
Detection must lay bare its vanity.
Pietro Damiano there was I yclept.'
Par., xxi. 94, et seq.
128 Dante at Ravenna
So far Gary's translation is exact, but when he
goes on to say,
* Pietro the sinner when before I dwelt
Beside the Adriatic, in the house
Of our blest Lady,'
he makes the very confusion which Dante had
tried to anticipate by introducing the personal
pronoun (io). The original runs thus :
' In quel loci fu' io Pier Damiano
E Pietro Peccatore fu nella casa
Di nostra Donna in sul lido Adrian©,'
which should be rendered :
' Pietro Damiano there was I yclept.
Peter the sinner 7cias the one who dwelt
Beside the Adriatic, in the house
Of our blest Lady.'
There is one conclusive proof that Pietro
Damiano could never have dwelt in the monastery
' beside the Adriatic,' because that monastery
was founded twenty-four years after his death
by Pietro Peccatore degli Onesti. No one could
be better aware of this fact than Dante, who
when at Ravenna was the contemporary of San
Rainaldo, the esteemed historian of the Church
which he had governed for twenty years.^
Moreover, there were at that time many living
descendants of the family of the Onesti, to whom
' Vide ante.
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 129
the sarcophagus of Pietro Peccatore, placed
then, as now, in a prominent position in the
church which he had founded — ' Di nostra
Donna in sul hdo Adriano ' — was a source of just
pride.
Thus, with the past history of the city vividly
before his mind, amid the companionship of
living contemporaries, who from their associa-
tion with him have left their mark upon the
page of history, in the midst of surroundings
less altered, perhaps, by the course of centuries
than any other of the cities of Italy associated
with his name, we can imagine Dante at
Ravenna.
Even at this distance of time we can form
some idea of the different aspects of his life.
At the Court of Guido Novello it is evident that
he filled many functions. In a public capacity
he was the trusted counsellor in the affairs of
State, and often the Ambassador, chosen on
account of his known eloquence, to conduct
delicate and difficult negotiations with rival
States. On the other hand, in a private capacity,
he was the intimate friend, the honoured guest,
the revered master in the art of rhetoric and
poetry, whose delight it was to guide the natural
aptitude and the refined taste of his illustrious
pupil. But, besides this close connection with
his patron, we have seen that he had a separate
independent life, a recognised position as a public
instructor of youth in Ravenna, and a house of
9
130 Dante at Ravenna
his own, provided for him by Guido Novello, the
site of which, although conjecture has been busy
with suggestions, has not yet been identified with
certainty.
It is time now to speak of his family. By
his marriage in 1292, two years after the death
of Beatrice, with Gemma dei Donati, the lady
at the window, whose compassionate glance ap-
pealed to his broken heart,^ he had six children.
Of these Alighiero and Eliseo died of the plague
in childhood. Imperia, the eldest daughter, be-
came the wife of Tano di Bencivenni Pantaleoni ;
the remaining three children — two sons, Pietro
and Jacopo, and one daughter, Beatrice — shared
their father's exile.^ To Pietro we have already
had occasion to refer, because certain dates con-
nected with the two ecclesiastical benefices, San
Simone di Muro and Sta. Maria di Zenzanigola,^
which he held in Ravenna, are of great import-
ance in fixing the date of the arrival of Dante in
the city. Pietro was a lawyer of considerable
reputation and fortune in Verona, where he
filled several important offices of the State.
Thence he came to join his father in Ravenna.
The benefices which he held there did not
involve in his case, any more than in that of
' ' Vita Nuova,' xxxvi. :
' Sicche tutta pietade pare in lei raccolta.'
- ' Dante e il suo Secolo,' p. 68.
^ San Simone di Muro, because built on the wall of the city ;
Sta. Maria di Zenzanigola, from the name of the street which exists
to this day.
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 131
Jacopo, who held a canonry in the parish of
S. Giorgio at Verona, the necessity of taking
Holy Orders.
Jacopo, the elder of the two brothers, who
had shared to a certain extent his father's
political career in Florence, was included in the
decree, of November 6, 1315, which renewed for
the fourth time the sentence of banishment, and
being also included in the pardon, offered two years
later to the illustrious exile, he shared in his
indignant refusal to return to Florence on the
terms offered to him.
It was the custom in Florence, on the feast-
day of the patron saint (San Giovanni), to pardon
a few of the condemned criminals, offering them,
so to speak, before the altar of the saint, lighted
taper in hand, and remitting the sentence to a
fine. In that year, 1317, it was decreed, probably
for the first time, that political offenders might
be admitted to the same privilege, and the offer
was made to Dante. His reply has been fortu-
nately preserved to us, and whatever doubts
may have been cast upon the authenticity of
some of his letters, as to this one both external
and internal evidence declare it to be his own.
' Is this,' he asks with a scorn worthy of the epithet
' Alma Sdegnosa,' which he confers upon himself in his
poem^ — ' is this the triumphant recall of Dante Alighieri
to his country after nearly fifteen years of unmerited
' * Inf.,' viii. 44.
9—2
132
Dante at Ravenna
exile ? Is this the reward of an innocence patent to all,
whoever they may be, of continued labour and study in
the sweat of the brow? V>c far from a man conversant
with philosophy the mere thought of a baseness proper
only to the heart of a churl, that he, like Ciolo^ and his
companions of evil renown, should be as some prisoner
ransomed from just condemnation.
' Be it far from a man who has once held the scales
of justice, that he, the injured party, should pay the fine
to his injurers, as to those entitled to receive it. . . .
Not in this way will I return to my country ; but if, O
my father,^ through thee, or through others, another way
could be found which will compromise neither the honour
nor the fame of Dante, in that way I will at once set
myself. For if I cannot re-enter Florence by an honour-
able path, I will not re-enter it at all. And forsooth in
whatever corner of the world I may find myself, can I
not behold the sun and the stars ? Can I not beneath
any portion of the canopy of heaven meditate upon the
highest, sweetest truth, unless I make myself a man of
no renown, if not, indeed, one dishonoured in the face of
the people and the city of Florence ? Nor, I am confi-
dent, shall I ever want for bread. '^
The rest of the letter is lost, but the frag-
ment cited, copied in Boccaccio's handwriting,
is to be seen in the Laurenziana Library, and
■* Probably some well-known criminal of the time.
° The Florentine friend to whom this letter was addressed is
supposed by Balbo to have been Fra Moricone, the Prior of the
Monastery of Fonte Avellana ; but there are also other theories
respecting it ('Vita di Dante,' vol. ii., p. 282).
' Epistola X., ' Air amico Fiorentino,' Opere Minore, vol. iii.,
p. 501.
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 133
it is commented upon by him in his Life of
Dante :
' Oh, noble scorn of a naagnanimous soul ! how power-
ful was thy influence in withstanding thy eager desire to
return, if such return could only be accomplished by
means unworthy of a man nourished in the school of
philosophy !'^
The decree of exile and the offer of pardon
did not touch Pietro, who had taken no part in
politics ; but his indignation was the same as
that of his brother Jacopo, and even after his
father's death he never re-entered Florence, nor,
although the names of the two brothers appear
conjointly in the deeds, did he take any personal
part in the division of the patrimony, which
Jacopo, availing himself of a later pardon in
1323, sued for and obtained as an act of clemency
from the Florentine Duke of Athens.
Although there is scarcely any record of their
intercourse with their father during the years they
shared his exile, they must have been admitted
into his full confidence respecting his great work,
a portion of it being still to be seen in the hand-
writing of Pietro in the rare MS. preserved in the
museum at Ravenna, while upon Jacopo devolved
the task of recovering the lost cantos of the
* Paradiso,' and of addressing the completed work
to Guido Novello, as will be shown in the last
chapter.
^ Boccaccio, 'Vita di Dante,' p. 12.
I 34 Dante at Ravenna
But the entire reticence on the part of Dante
himself respecting his family relationships is an
accepted fact. There was no exception made,
and there is no ground for supposing that the
vituperation which Boccaccio has heaped upon
Gemma, his wife, originated with Dante. She
may or may not have been the Xantippe depicted
by the practised hand of that prince of narrators.
No word upon the subject fell from the lips of
Dante himself.
On the other hand, there is no word of praise,
or even any mention of her after she became his
wife, no allusion to her in any of his writings,
and it is certain that she did not share his exile.
This absolute silence, this proud reserve, shows all
the more strongly by contrast with the outpouring
of the stream of his strong affection, the expres-
sion of every tender thought the human heart is
capable of, with reference to Beatrice, a devotion
which, far from being weakened, seemed only
to gain strength with the lapse of years, and
which finds expression in the latest utterances
of his poetic genius. His youngest daughter
bore her name, and was with her father at
Ravenna.
It is not surprising that this fact should have
suggested to modern art a most inspiring theme,
and that it should have commanded the utmost
skill of poet, novelist and dramatist in clothing it
with all the grace and pathos imaginable. But at
present, till more research has cast further light
Closing Years of the Life of Dante i 35
upon the subject, we must be content with the fact
that her presence at Ravenna is proved by the
circumstance of her entering the Convent of San
Stefano degH Uhvi after her father's death, and
that there Boccaccio found her when he brought
her, in 1353, the pension of ten gold florins,
whereby Florence, too late, endeavoured to repair
an irreparable act of injustice.
The archives of Or San Michele still preserve
the following entry :
'Sept., 1350. A. M. Giov. di Bocchacio fiorini dicci
d' ore perchfe gli desse a Suora Beatrice figluola di
Dante Alighieri, Monaca nel Motiistero di S. Stefano
deir Uliva di Ravenna.'^
To this visit of Boccaccio to Ravenna we owe
the sketch of Dante's life. It forms the prefix to
the famous commentary delivered first of all in
the form of lectures, when he was appointed by
the Government of Florence the first public ex-
ponent of the ' Divina Commedia,' in the Church
of San Stefano at Florence, in 1373. But to return
to the sketch of the life. It was, as he tells us in
his preface, intended as a slight amends to the
memory of Dante for his exile, and the lack of
any monument in Florence. He wished to supply
with his poor faculty of writing the honours which
the commonwealth had refused to the noblest of
her sons.
1 ' Ult. Rif.,' p. 214.
136 Dante at Ravenna
' And therefore, being myself of the same city, although
my citizenship is but the smallest fraction when set by the
side of the large nobility and virtue of Dante Alighieri,
yet as each fellow-citizen is under a solemn obligation
to celebrate his great fame, and that which the city
ought to have done magnificently not having been done,
I, though unworthy to undertake the task, will with my
poor ability endeavour to do, not, indeed, with a statue
or a gorgeous sepulchre, for neither would be in my
power, but with my pen, all unequal though it may be to
such a theme, in order that it may not be said among
strange countries that our nation is unworthy of such a
poet. And I will write in the Florentine idiom, because
it will agree with that which he employed in the greater
part of his works, things which his modesty forbade him
to speak of; that is to say, the nobility of his birth, his
life, studies, and habits, gathering together in one the
works of his composition, the which he has himself
made so clear to posterity that perhaps my exposition
will serve rather to obscure than elucidate them further.
Not that such is my wish or my intention, being con-
tent to abide in this, as in other things, by the judg-
ment of those wiser than myself, and to be corrected by
them.'
Passing by that portion of the sketch which
relates to the early life and career of its great
subject, we will turn to those personal character-
istics which must have been derived from Piero
di Giardini, who was still living when Boccaccio
arrived in Ravenna.^
' Vide ante, p. 112.
Closing Years of the Life of Dante i 37
' Our poet was of middle stature, and as soon as he
had reached middle life had a habit of stooping when he
walked. His carriage was grave and dignified ; his
dress simple, suitable to his time of life and adapted
to his advancing years. His face was long, the nose
aquiline ; the eyes large, rather than small ; the jaw
massive, and the under lip projected somewhat ; the
complexion dark, and the hair and beard thick, dark
and curling ; the expression always thoughtful and
melancholy. On this account it happened that one day
in Verona (the fame of his works having spread every-
where, and particularly that part of the " Divina Com-
media" entitled the "Inferno," which was well known
to numbers of men and women), as he passed by a
doorway where many women were congregated, one of
them, in a low voice, but sufficiently loud to be heard by
himself and by the person who was with him, said to the
other women : " Look at him ! That is the man who goes
down to hell, and returns when he hkes and brings to us up
here tidings of those who are down there." To which one
of the other women replied, with the utmost simplicity :
" No doubt thou art speaking the truth, because dost not
see how his hair is black and singed, and his face bronzed
with all the heat and the smoke there is below ?" And
he, hearing these words ejaculated behind him, and per-
ceiving that they were uttered by the women in simple
faith, pleased and content that such should be their
opinion, smiled to himself and passed on. Both in
public and private life his manner was ?'ways composed
and sedate, with invariable courtesy towaras all men.
' He was most temperate both as to eating and drink-
ing, never eating but at the regular times, and never
more than was necessary ; nor did he ever show any
■38
Dante at Ravenna
greediness in the choice either of food or drink ; and,
although he appreciated deHcate fare, he lived for the
most part on common and ordinary food, greatly blaming
those who made luxurious food and its special preparation
their study, declaring that such people did not eat to
live, but lived, instead, to eat. No one was more vigilant
in study, allowing no other care or interest to contend
witli it, so much so as to cause grief to his wife and
family before they became accustomed to his habits,
when they accepted it as a matter of course. He seldom
spoke, unless directly addressed, and when he did speak
it was with a voice and manner exactly measured and
adapted to the matter in hand, although when the occasion
required his eloquence was rich and abundant, fluent
also, and with careful distinct enunciation.
' In his youth he took great delight in songs and melo-
dies, and attached himself to anyone who had made
himself famous as a rhymester or minstrel ;^ and the
result of this delight showed itself in compositions
adapted for melody, which were so arranged by his
minstrel friends. How much he was influenced by
the tender passion of love has already been clearly shown,
and it is universally believed that this passion was the
main incentive to his becoming first of all a rhymester in
the vulgar tongue, and then, urged by the desire to give
solemnity to the declaration of his passion and to gain
subsequent fame, he diligently perfected himself in the
use of it till he had not only outstripped all his con-
temporaries, but he so gready improved and developed
it that many at the time and many since have desired
and succeeded in becoming experts in it. He preferred
to be alone and to live a solitary life, in order that his
' Casella, ' Purg./ ii. 91.
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 139
contemplations might be uninterrupted ; and if some
thought suddenly struck him, he being at that time in
the company of others, he would remain silent and
abstracted, no matter what question was put to him or
what observation made, until he had either concluded
his meditation or dismissed it from his mind ; this
would often happen either when at table or when walking
with his companions, and they desired to take another
way. His studies he pursued with unremitting assiduity,
and no new occurrence was ever allowed to alter or dis-
place the time allotted to them. It is said by those
worthy of credence, that being one day in Sienna, in
front of the booth of an apothecary, and a book having
been brought to him which had for a long time been
promised to him — a book much thought of by the learned
men of the time, but never having been seen by him —
and having by chance no place where he could take it
away to study it, there upon the bench outside the
booth where he stood, he placed himself, with the book
before him, and began to read it with such avidity that,
although on account of a general feast-day in Sienna
there was a joust and tournament going on before his
eyes, accompanied with the clash of weapons and armour,
the sound of various musical instruments, and the shouts
of the people — to say nothing of the accompaniments of
the feast, such as the dancing of beautiful women, and
deeds of prowess and skill on the part of the young men
— he was never seen to stir or to lift his eyes once from
the book ; and having placed himself there at nones, it was
not till after vespers that, having read the book through,
and having made himself thoroughly master of it, he
rose from his seat. On being asked how he could refrain
from looking at the gay spectacle in front of hiui, he re-
140 Dante at Ravenna
plied that he had not been even aware of it, and so to
the first wonder was added a second for his questioners
to ruminate upon.
' He was, moreover, a poet of marvellous genius, of
sound memory, and keen intellect — so much so that,
when in Paris, assisting at a discussion, " De quolibet,"
a subject at that time much debated in the schools of
theology, fourteen questions were put to him by different
men of great learning upon different points, with the
arguments for and against on either side, he, without
a moment's hesitation, gathered them together, and, in
their order as they had been put to him, replied to
them one by one in the same order, with much subtlety
meeting and confuting the arguments on the contrary
side, the which thing was looked upon as a miracle by
the bystanders.
' To the loftiness of his thought and the subtlety of
his inventive faculty his own works, rather than my
words, bear sufficient testimony. He longed for honour
and fame, perhaps more than was altogether consistent
with the nobility of his character. But, on the other
hand, what spirit is there so altogether humble as to be
insensible to the allurements of fame ? And it was, I
believe, on account of this longing that he preferred the
study of poetry, perceiving that as philosophy was superior
to all other studies, its excellence could only be under-
stood by the few, and that there existed already in the
world many famous philosophers ; whereas in the case
of poetry it was easy to all to understand and delight
in it, yet of poets they were few and far between.
Therefore, hoping by means of poetry to attain to the
almost obsolete and distinguished honour of the laurel
crown, he gave himself up both to the study and com-
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 141
position of tiie art. And certainly his desire would
have been fulfilled had fortune been favourable to him,
and had he been able to return to Florence, where alone,
at the Font of San Giovanni, would he have accepted the
laurel crown — there where he had received the first
name to take the second in the act of coronation. But
thus it fell out, that, although his merit was sufficiently
great to have enabled him to claim anywhere the honour
of the laurel crown (which does not, of itself, increase
knowledge, being but the seal and adornment of it), yet
that falling out which never should have been, he waited
in vain, and, refusing every other offer, died without the
much-coveted honour.'^
Such is the outline of the portrait traced by the
first biographer of Dante. Popular tradition has
added, in the form of anecdote, a few character-
istic touches. One of these relates how that
^ Later on in the same work Boccaccio makes a divergence to
treat of this custom, and gives three reasons for the choice of the
laurel, because the laurel amongst others has three especial pro-
perties : ' The first, we can see for ourselves it is evergreen ; the
second, it is impervious to the bolt of the thunder and the blast of
the lightning, in which it differs from all other trees ; the third, it
is odoriferous with the sweetest perfume — this we can also per-
ceive for ourselves. These three properties were reckoned by the
ancients, from whom the custom is derived, to mark its fitness for
celebrating the merit of the poet and the victory of the commander.
First, because the perpetual green of the leaves demonstrates the
undying fame of their deeds, those who have been crowned, or who
ever will be crowned, being thereby rendered immortal. Secondly,
their fame is so surely established as to be impervious to the blast
of envy and the destructive power of time, which consumes every-
thing. Thirdly, to show that all deeds of fame can never, in the
course of years, lose their enchantment for reader and listener alike,
but, being always acceptable and full of charm, are in their per-
petual sweetness like the leaves of the laurel.' — 'Vita di Uante,'
PP- 52, 53-
142 Dante at Ravenna
Dante, in one day's journey, passed through
Lugo, where he was cheated and given short
measure by a mercer ; through Fusignano, where
he was made to pay an unjust tax; through
Bagnacavallo, where he was insulted by the
people. Recapitulating in his evening orisons
the three outrages of the day, he is said to have
exclaimed :
' A statera Luci, a justitia Fusignani et ab infami plebe
Balneocaballi libera nos Domine.'
' From the standard of the Lughese, from the injustice
of the Fusignanese, and from the insults of the men of
Bagnacavallo, deliver us, O Lord.'
The tradition remains among the people of
Bagnacavallo to such an extent that, when any-
one embarks in a search for hidden treasures or
antiquities, they are derided for ' searching after
the bones of Dante's ass,' The poor animal
which carried the poet that day was so ill-treated,
while its master, the Ghibelline passing through
Guelph territory, was insulted, that it died shortly
afterwards, and was buried at Bagnacavallo.
A second anecdote is important, because it has
reference to what is called the ' Credo ' of Dante,
which, although pronounced by modern criticism
to be apocryphal, has hitherto been printed with
the minor works of Dante. It was originally
published in the fifteenth century in Latin, in the
modern spelling, and translated into Italian by
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 143
Quadrio.^ Confronted again with the original
MS.- by Rigoli, who discovered corroboration in
no less than twelve original MSS, of the fourteenth
century, and acquired a ' terzina ' in this process,
which had never been printed before,^ the ' Credo '
was placed by him at the head of a collection of
rhymes by various great writers,* with the follow-
ing introduction :
' It would not be possible to open our collection with
a more illustrious name. Dante stands first, both on
account of his fame and because of the chronological
order which we propose to adopt in the disposition of
our material. We therefore start with his " Profession of
Faith," which contains the Apostles' Creed, the Exposi-
tion of the Sacrament, and the Decalogue, the enumera-
tion of the deadly sins, the Paraphrase of the Lord's
Prayer, and the Ave Maria in " terza rima." '^
Although, as a matter of poetry, it has no
extraordinary merit, yet on account of the terse
and pellucid exposition of the faith as Dante
believed it, showing exactly what his tenets were
even with respect to the observance of Sunday ."^ it
' Author of ' Storia e Ragione di Ogni Letteratura,' a standard
work.
' Codice 1,011 della Riccardiana.
' ' Masol di quell' eterno,' etc., xxvi.
* ' Saggio di Rime di diversi buoni Autori.'
' ' II Canzoniere di Dante Alighieri,' etc., Da Pietro Fraticelli.
* ' II Terzo si e, che ciascun si riposa
D' ogni fatica un dl nella semana
Siccome Santa Chiesa aperto pose.'
The commandment is called the third instead of the fourth, because
the first and second are made into one.
144 Dante at Ravenna
is to be hoped that the further researches in con-
templation will remove all doubt that it was
indeed his work. Moreover, the origin of the
composition is not a little interesting. The story
is as follows :
There dwelt in Ravenna a learned friar of the
minor order, who was an inquisitor, and hear-
ing much talk of this Dante, he determined ' in
his heart to know him so that he might see
whether in truth he erred from the faith of Christ;
and one morning, when Dante was in a church to
worship our Lord, this inquisitor arrived in the
same church, and Dante was pointed out to him.
Then the inquisitor caused him to be summoned.
Dante approached him with reverence. The
inquisitor then asked, " Art thou that Dante who
sayest that thou hast passed through hell, purga-
tory and paradise ?" And Dante replied, " I am
Dante Alighieri of Florence." And the inquisitor
went on angrily, "Thou makest songs and sonnets
and such-like rubbish. Thou wouldst have done
far better to write a grammar, and have been
content to rest on the foundations of the Church
of God, giving no heed to such inventions, which
may one day bring thee the reward that thou
meritest." And Dante making as if he would
reply to this, the inquisitor said, " This is not the
time ; but on such a day we will meet, for I wish
to investigate these things." Dante then an-
swered that this would be most agreeable to him,
and, leaving the inquisitor, retired to his room.
Closing Years of the Life of Dante 1 45
There he wrote the treatise which is called the
" Little Creed," the which is a complete affirma-
tion of the creed of Christ. Having shown this to
the inquisitor, it seemed to him a very remarkable
production, and he knew not any more what to
say to Dante.'
A third anecdote is cited as valuable evidence
that Dante gave public instruction in Ravenna.
It is said that, while these lectures were being
delivered, another of the Ravennese doctors said
to a student who was praising the science of
Dante, ' You speak of the science of a rogue,'
adding, * Because Dante has said everything
worthy of fame and remembrance in his poems,
and has left nothing for anyone else to say, there-
fore he is a rogue.'
The fourth and last shows the unfailing readi-
ness of his wit. One day, at the Court of Guido
da Polenta, a courtier, perceiving that Dante,
silent and grave, as was his wont, kept aloof from
the company, never ceased persecuting him with
questions as to what was the matter — what was
he thinking about ?
' I was wondering,' replied Dante, * which was
the greatest beast in the world.'
' Oh !' said his tormentor, ' don't rack your
brains any more about that, for I can tell you.
The elephant is the greatest beast in the
world.'
' Then,' replied Dante immediately, * dear
10
146 Dante at Ravenna
Mr. Elephant, do leave me alone and attend to
your own affairs.'
These anecdotes are preserved in Ravenna with
as much care as the tradition which indicates the
path, called the Viale de' Poeti, or del Poeta, taken
by Dante on his way to the Pine Forest.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PIN ETA— EMBASSY TO VENICE— DEATH AND
BURIAL.
10 — 2
CHAPTER VI.
THE PINETA — EMBASSY TO VENICE — DEATH
AND BURIAL.
' La divina Foresta spessa e viva.'
Furg., xxviii. I, 2.
IF, from the Latin correspondence, it is reason-
able to suppose that the * Paradiso ' was
mainly written at Ravenna, the description
of the * divina Foresta spessa e viva ' in the * Pur-
gatorio ' leaves no room for doubt that the Pine
Forest at Ravenr.a must have inspired that
passage, and that there, and nowhere else, could
it have been written.
It has been ably argued, in the paper already
alluded to, by Mr, Gladstone, when enumerating
probabilities in favour of Dante's visit to Oxford,
that he must have had personal cognizance of the
places he described. For example, when he nar-
rates the journey of Caesar up the Rhone it is
through his own personal experience of the place.
Again, the cities of Flanders are named by him,
because he saw them in his journey further North,
150 Dante at Ravenna
and so on till he reaches England, adding touches
of local interest which could only have been ob-
tained by a personal knowledge of the spot.
This argument is still more forcible when
applied, not to a city or a place, but to some pass-
ing phenomenon of Nature or sudden effect. How,
for example, if he had not himself witnessed it,
could Dante have described the appearance of
the Tower of Cariscenda, which, if the clouds
behind it are travelling in the direction contrary
to the inclination of the tower, make it seem
about to fall P^
' As appears
The Tower of Cariscenda, from beneath
Where it doth lean, if chance a passing cloud
So sail across, that opposite it hangs.
Such then Antaeus seemed, as at mine ease
I marked him stooping.'
Carv, Trans.
Or, again, the gentle fall of the snow in the silence
of a mountain pass,- or the sudden rising and
spreading of the mist till the whole landscape was
blotted out, if he had not himself beheld the
phenomena while passing the Apennines in the
early winter ?
In a similar way, only more forcible still, the
forest in the 'Purgatorio' is a living picture of the
Pineta at Ravenna, and has been referred to in
this sense in all the commentaries, most notably
in that of Benvenuto da Imola.^
' 'Inf.,' xxxi. 136, 141. " 'Purg.,' xxx. 85.
* ' Comentum,' iv. 161, 162.
The Pineta 151
It is not only the rustle of the pines and the
song of the birds which, in the poem, exactly
describe the great forest at Ravenna. The picture
is a facsimile in all its details, and proves how
profound was the impression upon the mind of
Dante. No point of note escapes him when, in
the ' Purgatorio,' he paints from the life the tall,
rugged trunks, often in straight rows like the
aisles of an ancient basilica, with branches reach-
ing out from side to side, interlacing each other,
making shelter alike from heat and storm, and
penetrated by an even, tempered light. Below,
an undergrowth of myrtle and juniper, as if
rejoicing in the protection overhead, spreads
itself over a carpet of moss, broken here and
there by little clumps of flowering shrubs and
sweet-smelling flowers. Here is the first picture
of it in the lines :
' Vago gia di cercar dentro e dintorno,
La divina Foresta spessa e viva.'
Purg.^ xxviii. i.
' Through that celestial forest, whose thick shade
With lively greenness the new springing day
Attempered, eager now to roam, and search
Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank.'
Like a curtain of green velvet, the thick crests
of the pines break the blast of the wind so effectu-
ally that it cannot bluster in the sheltered aisles
of the mysterious forest, and only reaches the
traveller with a force as mitigated as that of the
152 Dante at Ravenna
light. And when the sirocco blows from the
south-east the pines on the coast turn towards
the west, and through their needle foliage passes
a sweet murmur as of an ^olian harp :
' Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie
Per la Pineta in sul lito di Chiassi,
Quando Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie.'
Purg., xxviii. 19-21.
' Even as from branch to branch,
Along the piny forests on the shore
Of Chiassi, rolls the gathering melody,
When Eolus hath from his cavern loosed
The dripping south.'
Gary, Trans.
The birds which, by a natural instinct, have
sought refuge in this evergreen arcade, undisturbed
by the storm, sing on in ceaseless melody :
' Non perb dal lor esser dritto sparte
Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime
Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte :
Ma con piena letizia 1' aure prime,
Cantando, riceveano intra le foglie,
Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime.'
Ibid., 13-18.
' Upon their top the feathered quiristers
Applied their wonted art, and with full joy
Welcomed those hours of prime, and warbled shrill
Amid the leaves, that to their jocund lays
Kept tenor.'
Carv, Trans.
The Pineta
153
Then we have the description of the canals
which, at regular intervals, intersect the dense
regions of the great forest, carrying their limpid
waters to the sea, their banks lined with fresh
herbage :
* Gia m' avean trasportato i lenti passi
Dentro all' antica selva tanto, ch' io
Non potea riveder dond' io m' entrassi :
Ed ecco r andar piu mi tolse un rio,
Che inver sinistra con sue piccole onde
Piegava 1' erba che in sua ripa uscio.
Tutte r acque, che son di qua piu monde,
Parrieno avere in se mistura alcuna
Verso di quella, che nulla nasconde,
Avvegna che si muova bruna bruna
Sotto r ombra perpetua, che mai
Raggiar non lascia Sole ivi, nb Luna.
Coi pie ristetti e con gli occhi passai
Di la dal fiumicello, per mirare
La grande variazion de' freschi mai. '
Ibid., 22-36.
' Already had my steps,
Though slow, so far into that ancient wood
Transported me, I could not ken the place
Where I had entered, when behold ! my path
Was bounded by a rill, which to the left
With little rippling waters bent the grass,
That issued from the brink. On earth no wave
How clean soe'er, that would not seem to have
Some mixture in itself, compared with this,
Transpicuous, clear ; yet darkly on it rolled,
Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne'er
I 54 Dante at Ravenna
Admits or sun or moon light there to shine.
My feet advanced not ; but my wondering eyes
Passed onward, o'er the streamlet, to survey
The tender May-bloom, flushed through many a hue.
In prodigal variety.'
Gary, Tratis.
No one who had ever visited the spot could
fail to recognise in the ' divina Foresta spessa e
viva ' of the terrestrial paradise the character-
istics of the Pine Forest at Ravenna, and one
glance back at the Latin eclogue of Giovanni del
Virgilio, while confirming Dante's description,
will show how familiar these were also to his
correspondent.^
This conjunction of testimony would lead one
to suppose that the concluding cantos of the
' Purgatorio,' as well as the whole of the * Para-
diso,' were composed in the cool, mysterious
shade of the forest to the melodious accompani-
ment of the rustling pines and ceaseless song of
the birds.
To this period also belong those minor works of
Dante — the * Credo,' already referred to, and the
* Paraphrase of the Seven Penitential Psalms.'
This paraphrase, though, of course, lacking in the
power and vigour which characterize the original
work of Dante, has caught the spirit of the writer,
prompted probably by the same feelings, that
appeal from the injustice of men to the justice
of God, which inspired the psalmist, and the
1 Vide ante, Chapter IV., p. 104.
Opere Minori 155
passionate yearnings which, in the hour of
anguish, have gone up from many and many a
sorrow-laden soul.
Here and there we find thrown in many a little
personal touch relating to his own life, short-
comings, and bent of mind. These are to be
found especially in Psalm V., and still more in
the De Proftindis, which is the most masterly
paraphrase of all.
From the calm solitudes where he pursued
occupations of this nature, and from a corre-
sponding state of thought, Dante was suddenly
called upon by his patron, Guido Novello, to
appear once more in the public capacity of an
Ambassador from Ravenna to Venice ; and this is
the last important act of his life.
Needless to say that the closing event of such a
career has proved the last citadel round which
every storm of criticism, assertion, and counter-
assertion has raged, and will rage till further and
renewed investigation has settled the points of
dispute. Meanwhile the facts can only be re-
stated as they have hitherto stood, together with
the arguments for and against the letter, supposed
to have been written from Venice by Dante to
Guido da Polenta. Boccaccio makes no allusion
to the Embassy to Venice. After the sentence
in which he describes the life of Dante at Ravenna
as being chiefly spent in giving instruction to his
scholars in the art of poetry in the lingua volgare,^
' See Chapter IV.
156 Dante at Ravenna
he passes at once to that hour appointed to all
men which came also to Dante. Only in so far
as the date which he assigns tallies with the period
of the return from Venice does the testimony of
Boccaccio throw any light upon the vexed ques-
tion. It is upon the narrative of Villani, sup-
ported by Manetti, that biographers have hitherto
rested for their statements. The chronicle of
Villani records that Dante died
' in the city of Ravenna in the Romagna, on his return
from his Embassy to Venice on behalf of the Signori da
Polenta, with whom he lived. '^
Then follow further particulars, from which we
gather the motive of the Embassy. A dispute had
arisen between Venice and Ravenna ; a Venetian
ship had been attacked by the Ravennese, the
captain killed, and many of the crew wounded.
The Venetians, furious, quickly determined on
reprisal. They made an alliance with the Orde-
laffi at Forli, promising to supply funds to the
amount of 3,000 golden florins to raise and equip
troops so as to make immediate war upon Ravenna,
and, in return for their support, they were to receive
a free supply of salt and grain while the war lasted.
They laid their grievance before the Malatesta of
Rimini, relating the offence committed in time of
peace against the Republic by Guido da Polenta
and the commune of Ravenna. As a protest
against such an outrage they summoned Pandolfo
^ ' Storie,' lib. ix., c. xxxiv.
Embassy to Venice 157
to withdraw his alliance from Ravenna, and to
refuse the passage through Rimini of any force
sent to the assistance of Ravenna, under pain of
being considered the enemy of Venice. Cesena,
Imola, and Faenza received similar instructions
from the incensed Republic. Meanwhile the
OrdelafR lost no time in responding to the
Venetian proposals, promising at once to attack
Ravenna with all the infantry they could muster,
as well as to supply two hundred cavalr}.' within
the first and three hundred within the second
month, ' in order to defeat that city, the enemy of
Venice, with force and valour, to the utter loss
and destruction of the same until she sued for
peace or a truce.'
Ravenna, thus threatened on all sides by a
combination of enemies, one of whom alone
would have sufficed for her destruction, had no
time to lose in pacifying her enraged adversary,
and Guido da Polenta decided to despatch an
immediate Embassy to Venice to avert the im-
pending storm. Nor was there any hesitation in
his choice of Dante as the principal Ambassador,
not only on account of his learning and well-
known powers of rhetoric, but because of his
diplomatic experience in former embassies, his
previous relationship with the Ordelaffi family,
who shared his politics, and one of whom,
Scarpetta, he had served as secretary (1307-8).
Matters having reached this threatening crisis,
delay was dangerous, and the Ambassadors must
158 Dante at Ravenna
have left Venice in the last days of August.
Although no document has yet been found in the
Venetian archives relative to the arrival of this
first Embassy from Ravenna, the documents which
do exist are as follows :
I. August II, 1321. The determination of the
Maggior Consiglio as to a rupture of all negotiation
between Venice and Ravenna.
II. August 17, 1321. The despatch of the
Venetian Ambassador, Niccolo di Marsilio, by
Doge Giovanni Soranzo to Cecco degli Ordelaffi
to solicit his alliance.
III. August 22, T321. The reply, as cited, of
Cecco degli Ordelaffi.
Another document, that of October 20, the same
year, one month after the death of Dante, relates
to the second Embassy despatched from Ravenna,
in which there is plain and distinct allusion to the
previous Embassy. This had evidently resulted
in the preliminaries of a peace, the provisions
of which were carried a stage further by the
second Embassy. The reply of the Doge and
the Council leaves no room for doubt upon the
matter.
' You already know ' (these are the terms in which it is
couched), ' both from ourselves and our commissioners,
that it is our intention to live in peace with the com-
munity of Ravenna, but because you have already said,
and say now, that you are not empowered to reply, go
back for your instructions and return, either yourselves,
or let others return in your stead, with an arranged con-
Embassy to Venice 1 59
tract and agreement, ready to be signed, and the
negotiations will proceed in such a manner as to put a
stop to all discord, and peace will again reign. Mean-
while it will be well that the Ravennese restore what they
have taken, and we will do the same. As to the pro-
clamation of peace, go back to Ravenna and proclaim it
both in regard to ourselves and to our allies, especially
the Ordelaffi.'
Two things are clear from this document, which
fortunately has been preserved. In the first place,
that there had been a previous Embassy, the date
of which may be fixed somewhere between the
last days of August and the first of September.
Secondly, that that Embassy — the Embassy of
Dante — had been a successful preliminary measure.
It would seem as if either a truce or a peace had
been proposed by Dante ; that the Venetians had
not shown themselves averse to either, but had
demanded concrete proposals. Therefore a second
Embassy had arrived from Ravenna in October to
suggest that Venice should take the initiative and
draw up the articles of the treaty. To this the
Doge and Council replied as we have seen, and
this was transcribed as a preliminary compact in
the Venetian archives. The result, then, of the
Embassy of Dante was success, though he did
not live to see the treaty signed.
We must now consider the letter from Venice.
It is No. viii. among the Latin epistles.^ The
' 'II Convito (li Dante e le Epistole,' Kralicelli, p. 431.
1 60 Dante at Ravenna
title : * Al Magnifico Messer Guido da Polenta,
Signer di Ravenna.' The date March 30, 1314.
Whether or not this is a genuine letter — and at
present the arguments remain equally balanced —
can only be decided by some fresh discovery. It
first saw the light in 1547, being published in a
volume entitled, ' Prose Antiche di Dante, Petrarca,
Boccaccio,' etc., collected by a certain Anton
Francesca Doni. Whereas the other Latin
epistles can be confronted with original MSS., in
the case of this one, up to the present time, the
MS. is lacking. The initial difficulty as to the date,
1314 instead of 1321, can be disposed of in two
ways : either that it is a mistaken figure, which
seems to be the opinion of Balbo,^ or that it
belongs to another of the occasions when Dante
was sent on an Embassy to Venice. Possibly it
belongs to the complimentary visit of congratula-
tion despatched from Ravenna to Venice on the
occasion of the election of the Doge Giovanni
Soranzo, 13 14, which seems suggested by the
internal evidence of the document. However
that may be, the greater part of the letter consists
of an indignant protest because, having begun his
oration in Latin, he was told to desist because
the language was not understood by the Venetians
in council assembled ; and the second attempt to
address them in his mother-tongue was attended
with as little success. Nor was their ignorance
to be wondered at, considering their Greco-Dal-
1 Balbo, 'Vita di Dante,' vol. ii., p. 331.
Embassy to Venice i6i
matian origin. Then follows a request to Guido
never to send him again on a similar Embassy,
which could neither add to his own reputation nor
be productive of any satisfaction or consolation to
his patron. The letter concludes with the para-
graph :
' I shall stay here a few days to feast my bodily eyes,
which are naturally enchanted with the novelty and
beauty of this spot, and shall then return to the sweet
haven of my retirement, surrounded with the benign pro-
tection of your princely courtesy. '^
We must accept with some reserve the state-
ments in the chronicle of Villani that the Vene-
tians purposely refused to listen to Dante, fearing
that the power of his eloquence might deter them
from the revenge for which they thirsted ; also
that they would not send him back under escort
in one of their ships to Ravenna, lest the same
dreaded eloquence should convert the Vene-
tian Admiral and corrupt the fleet. This seems
scarcely probable, although it is not unnatural
that Villani should omit no touch in his narrative
which might enhance the reputation of Dante as
an orator. It is more likely that he took the
return journey by land to escape any vexation by
the Venetian fleet. We must also bear in mind
that the road along the coast was the accepted
highway and post communication between the
Marches, the Romagna, and Venice, and con-
' ' Le Epistole,' viii., p. 482.
II
i62 Dante at Ravenna
tinued to be so up to the close of the last century.
The treacherous waves of the Adriatic and sudden
fierce storms were too well known to the dwellers
on the coast to make it a chosen method of com-
munication between Ravenna and Venice. The
very Venetian soldiers were ordinarily despatched
by land, the Castle of Marcabo having been built
as a fortress to command the land access. There
was also the question of time ; the Embassy was
obliged to return without delay to lay before
Guido Novello the proposals upon which the
safety of the State depended. It was not likel)'
that in such an emergency they would expose
themselves to a delay of possibly twenty days on
a journey by sea which could be accomplished by
land in three or four. We may, then, imagine the
route pursued by Dante and his fellow-Ambas-
sadors. They would probably have gone by boat
along the shores of Malamocco, Pelestrina, and
Chioggia, past the great Murazzi, or sea-walls of
Venice, and possibly the sunset over the Lagune,
with the soft haze upon the Euganean Hills, would
have brought to a close the journey of the first
day. The next day, passing through the delta
of the Po by means of the huge flat-bottomed
boats or rafts which then, as now, formed a
means of communication, they would reach in the
evening the magnificent Benedictine Abbey of
Pomposa, whose tall tower, glittering with majolica
and terra-cotta, must have been a welcome sight
to the weary travellers. Probably there, as at the
The Return from Venice 163
Fonte Avellana on Monte Catria, the Benedictine
Fathers came out in their white robes to welcome
the illustrious Embassy on its return journey.
Pursuing their way with the morning light, the
travellers would thread through the Lagunes of
Comacchio, and, keeping to the long sandy strip
of shore, would cross the Lamone, and enter the
northern extremity of the Pineta. Thence through
the deep, unbroken silence of the forest, beneath
the sheltering shade of the protecting pines, with
the velvet sward beneath his feet, Dante paced
his last steps, ' nel cammin di nostra vita,' perhaps
in that sweet hour of sunset when
' Volge il disio
. . . Ainaviganti ed intenerisce '1 cuore
Lo di ch' ann detto ai dolci amici addic'
* Now was the hour that wakens fond desire
In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell.'
Gary, Tratis.
It was his farewell to earth, for the fatal
malaria was already in his veins. The season,
the early days of September, was the worst for
travelling along the coast, through marshes where
the first autumn rains had stirred the deposits of
the long, dry summer, drawing forth exhalations
of a pestilential character, and Dante reached his
home in Ravenna only to die.
We must now return to the narrative of Boc-
caccio, remembering that this portion of it was
II— 2
164 Dante at Ravenna
taken down from the lips of an eye-wilness of that
death, Pietro Giardino, to whom Dante confided,
'as he lay in his last sickness of which he died, that he
had already passed his fifty-sixth year by as much time as
the interval between the preceding May and that day
(September 14).^
' He then having received, with humility and devotion,
every ecclesiastical sacrament, according to the rites of
the Christian Faith, and being reconciled to God for all
those things which he had done contrary to His will, and
at peace with man, in the month of September, in the
year of our Lord 132 1, on the day when the Invention
of the Cross is celebrated by the Church, to the great
grief of the aforesaid Guido da Polenta, and generally to
that of all the citizens of Ravenna, he commended his
weary spirit into the hands of his Creator, the which, I
doubt not, was received into the arms of his saintly
Beatrice, with whom, in the presence of Him who is the
Supreme Good, having bid farewell to the miseries of
this world, he lives in that other life, to the everlasting
felicity of which there is no end.'
Further, we learn from the same narrative how
Guido da Polenta caused the body of Dante to
lie in state, vested with all the insignia and
decorations becoming a poet ; that it was then
carried by the chief citizens, accompanied by the
whole lamenting populace, with every mark of
honour and distinction, to its last resting-place,
near the Church of the Franciscans in Ravenna,
where it was deposited in the sarcophagus, which
' ' Vita di Giovanni Boccaccio,' vol. i.
The Return from Venice 165
remains as it was to this day. Guido then re-
turned to the house in which Dante had lived,
and there, according to the custom of Ravenna,
pronounced a long and eloquent funeral oration,
with the double purpose of giving emphasis to the
deep learning and distinguished merits of the
dead, and to comfort the living friends to whom
his loss would occasion such bitter mourning.
A few lines in verse by Antonio Pucci, of which
the translation is given, follow, and somewhat
amplify the prose narrative of Villani and Boc-
caccio :
' There in Ravenna, ne'er again to smile,
But late returned from Venice, whither sent
Ambassador on Guide's best erewhile,
He died amid the city's loud lament.
' He, the true poet, in that garb they vestj
The laurel crown they place upon his head ;
A noble book he clasps to silent breast ;
With cloth of gold they drape his fun'ral bed :
Thus willed Polenta's Lord, at lavish cost.
Some time in life his kind and courteous host.'
CHAPTER VII.
THE TOMB OF DANTE, AND THE DISCOVERY OF
HIS REMAINS.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TOMB OF DANTE, AND THE DISCOVERY OF
HIS REMAINS.
' In terra e terra mio corpo.'
IN death, as in life, Guido da Polenta held fast
by the privilege of honouring his revered
guest, and the hospitality which had never
ceased to accompany the living form of the poet
was now directed to raising such a monument
over his remains as would alone have handed
him down to posterity had his own merits failed
to do so. Moreover, it was to be inscribed
with an epitaph, and that this might be worthy of
the occasion, Guido threw it open to competition
among all the poets of the Romagna, hoping that
either because they wished to pay their individual
tribute to a great name, or from motives of per-
sonal vanity to gain distinction, or because they
wished to win the favour and applause of the cele-
brated Lord of Ravenna, there would be every
motive for emulation among them to produce an
epitaph which would fitly instruct posterity as to
170
Dante at Ravenna
the high merit of him whose remains were en-
closed in that sepulchre. Most unfortunately a
scheme so happily conceived, so worthy of Guido
da Polenta in its large-hearted liberality and
keen desire for perfection, was frustrated by an
undeserved and overwhelming disaster.
' Jolas,' it will be remembered, was the name
assigned by Dante to Guido Novello in the Latin
correspondence, because of the friendship between
Jolas and /Eneas ; but there was also, though
Dante was unaware of it, an element of prophecy
in the comparison. The lines of the * Mneid '
relate of Jolas :
' In high Lyrnessus and in Troy he held
Two palaces, and was from each expelled ;
Of all the mighty man, the last remains,
A little spot of foreign earth contains.'
/Eneid^ xii. 800, Dryden's Trails.
But before we reach the narrative of subsequent
treachery, we will turn to the one bright spot
which relieves it, which sets the crown upon the
relationship between Guido Novello and his guest,
and shows that the sons of Dante knew how to
appreciate the constant kindness of their father's
patron and friend. It will be remembered that
Guido Novello was called away from Ravenna to
Bologna almost immediately after the death of
Dante, September 14, 132 1, and therefore he
had been some seven months at Bologna when
he was elected Capitano del Popolo, April i, 1322.
The Tomb of Dante 171
It was on this day, and to celebrate this event
with the greatest compHment in their power, that
he received from the sons of Dante the first com-
plete copy of the * Divina Commedia,' made from
his father's autograph by Jacopo Alighieri, with a
prefix of his own in ' terza rima,' beginning as
follows :
* O voi che siete del verace lume
Alquanto illuminati nella mente
Ch' e sommo frutto dell' alto volume
Perche vostra natura sia possente
Pill nel veder 1' esser dell' Universe
Guardate all' alta Commedia.'
* All ye within whose minds some streak doth shine,
If but with tempered ray of light divine,
Of this consummate work the end and aim,
If that your nature would with power claim
The being of the universe to see,
Then look within this lofty comedy.'
Then follows the preface, ' Proemio di Jacopo
Alighieri al suo comento sopra la Commedia di
Dante suo Padre.' It begins :
' Accib chc del fructo universale novellamente dato al
mondo pr lo illustro phylosofo poeta Dante Alighieri co'
pill agevolezza si possa gustare p. coloro in cui lume
naturale alquanto risplende senza scientitica appresione
io Jacopo suo figluolo p. materiale i)rosa dimostrare
itendo parlare del miso profomio ed autcntico itendi-
mcnto. La quale per piu chiarezza simigliantamente
172 Dante at Ravenna
si conviene seguitare dichiarando ore bisogna quella
parte al libro p. dicto p. titulo che a cio si conviene nella
quale cominciando cosi procedo Nel mezzo del cammin,'
etc.,
which may be translated :
' In order that the fruit newly given to the world by
the illustrious philosopher and poet, Dante Alighieri,
may be of universal benefit, and more easily tasted by
those whose natural intellect is not seconded by scientific
knowledge, I, Jacopo, his son, intend to demonstrate in
plain language some part of his profound and true mean-
ing. The which for more clearness it will be better to
follow closely, explaining where it is necessary that part
of the aforesaid book citing the passage in question, and
beginning with it, I proceed Nel mezzo del cammin,' etc.
This work is sent first to Guido da Polenta,
because no one is so fit to correct it as Guido, on
account of his intimate acquaintance with the
poem itself, quaintly described by Jacopo as * his
sister,' whose features are so familiar to Guido.
The sonnet is as follows :
' Accib che le bellezze Signor mio
Che mia sorella nel suo lume porta
Habian d' agevolezza alcuna scorta
Pill in coloro in cui porgon disio
La qual di tal piacer ciascun conforta
Ma non a quelli c' han la luce morta
Che '1 ricordar a lor saria oblio !
Pero a voi c' havete sue fattezze
Per natural prudenza habituate
Prima la mando che la corregiate.
The Tomb of Dan.te 173
E s' ella e digna che la commendiate
Ch' altri non e che di cotai bellezze
Habia si come voi vera chiarezze.'
' In order that, O lord and master mine,
My sister's beauties, as they radiant shine,
May with the more facility unfold
To those who seek them with desire to hold.
The which on such will ever comfort shed.
But not on those in whom true light is dead
(To such remembrance gives oblivion place) :
Therefore to thee I send — the well-known face,
Familiar, long by gift and learning proved,
I send, that worthy she may be approved ;
For none as thee with such discerning eye
Beauties so great hast power to descry.'
Carducci, one of the greatest modern authorities
on Italian literature, comments thus upon this
sonnet :
'There is certainly no affinity between the verses of
Dante and those of Jacopo, yet to have for a father the
father of the " Divina Commedia " is a matter for family
pride to which nothing can be compared in this world.
To have felt this pride, to have loved the work of his
father, which, on account of its superlative character,
must deprive anyone bearing the same name of any hope
of distinction ; to have loved it so well as to have clothed
this awful and terrible vision with a semblance of cor-
poreal form, and to have called it by one of the sweetest
names of family relationship, showing by that affectionate
metaphor the place it held in his thoughts, testifies to the
noble and generous nature of the man ; for the power
174 Dante at Ravenna
to reverence genius for its own sake, and the faculty to
understand it, stands only second to genius itself.'^
This preface, often to be found in MS. copies
of the ' Divina Commedia,' rests for authenticity
upon three of the most important, because the
earliest, MSS. of the poem — I. The Bodleian
MS., from which the translation on the pre-
vious page has been made. II. That of the
Carriani of Mantua, which bears the signature of
the scribe, Jacopus de Placentia, 1380, and, after
giving the introduction by Jacopo Alighieri, cites
also the sonnet, which, ' with the aforesaid intro-
duction, was sent, by Jacopo, the son of Dante,
to the magnificent and noble knight, Guido da
Polenta, a.d. 1322. '^ III. That of the Codice
Dantesco, in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris,
date 1351,^ which, besides bearing the name of
Jacopo, has also this conclusion:
' Per ipsum missus fuit ad magnificum et sapientum
militem Dum Guidonem de Polentia anno millesimo
trecentesimo vigesimo secundo dii primo mensis Aprile,'
and is followed by the valuable glosses of our
Jacopo upon the ' Inferno.'*
This proemio, or preface, by Jacopo Alighieri,
which relates to the whole poem, must not be
confused with another gloss upon his father's
^ Carducci, ' Delia varia Fortuna di Dante.'
- 'Ultimo Rifugio,' p. 175.
* No. 7,765 old nuinerale, now 534-
* * Seguitato da Pregh°" chiose del n' Jacopo supra 1' Inferno.'
The Tomb of Dante 175
work, entitled the * Divisione di Jacopo Alighieri,'
of which the MS. is also to be found in the Paris
Library.^ The ' Divisione ' has reference only to
the ' Paradiso,' dividing it — hence the name of
* Divisione ' — into nine parts, explaining that this
form has been chosen because of the ' good ' of
which the number nine is the emblem, ' Simile al
ben che dal nove declina.' Thus, Jacopo divides
off, in short doggerel couplets, the well-known nine
spheres of the ' Paradiso,' concluding with the
lines of which the translation is subjoined :
'Therefore from this you may henceforward see
How much of that profound high fantasy
Of Dante, sole artificer and sire,
You may by careful study there acquire.
See how the words upon his ample page
The universal good successful gauge ;
Hence, by example, how to evil shun.
Nor with unmastered passion heedless run,
And fatal plant our feet in error's way
(Which from th' eternal temple leads astray) ;
For he himself was once a wanderer lost,
Till a hand stretched from out th' heavenly host
Led him by will Divine forth from the strife,
While yet midway in this our earthly life.'
How quickly the knowledge of the poem became
diffused over the Court of Guido Novello at
Bologna may easily be imagined, and it was in
Bologna that the first commentaries upon it by
Graziolo dci Bambaglioli (1324) and Jacopo della
' MS. da Francesco di Maestro Tura, etc.
176 Dante at Ravenna
Lana (1323-1328) began to appear. Both had
political and official relations with Guido Novello,
which we may fairly conclude may have been
drawn to a common literary centre by their joint
and close study of the ' Divina Commedia.' In
all probability this would be also the period when
Giovanni del Virj^ilio, in response to the appeal
from Guido Novello, wrote the famous epitaph :
' Theologus Dantes nullius dogmatis expers,
Quod foveat claro philosophia sinu :
Gloria Musarum, vulgo gratissimus auctor,
Hie jacet, et fama pulsat utrumque polum.
Qui loca defunctis gelidis regnumque gemellum
Distribuit, logicis, rhetoricisque niodis.
Pascua Pieriis demum resonabat avenis ;
Atropos heu ! lectum livida rupit opus.
Huic ingrata tulit tristem Florentia fructum,
Exilium vati patria cruda suo.
Quern pia Guidonis gremio Ravenna Novelli
Gaudet honorati continuisse Ducis
Mille trecentenis ter septem Numinis annis
Ad sua septembris idibus astra redit'
' Dante the theologian, wanting in no dogma
Of all that Philosophy cherishes in her glorious bosom,
The glory of the Muses, the most famous author in
the vernacular,
Lies here, but with his name strikes the two Poles,
Who told in due order, by rule of Logic and Rhetoric,
Of the places for the cold dead and of that other em-
pire.
Epitaph by Giovanni del Virgilio 177
Lastly, he began to celebrate the Shepherd's Arcady
with Pierian pipe.
Alas ! envious Fate cut short the work in its bloom.
To him ungrateful Florence, his unkind country,
Rendered to her poet a bitter recompense of exile ;
Him pious Ravenna delights to have held
In the bosom of her honoured Lord Guido Novello.
In the year of God 132 1, on the Ides of September,
He returned to his own stars. '^
The touch of internal evidence as to the ' Shep-
herd's Arcady,' from the pen of Dante's corre-
spondent, in the eclogues from which we have
cited, seems to add another convincing proof to
the weight of evidence in favour of Giovanni del
Virgilio as the author.
Following the narrative another step, we can
picture to ourselves that this would have been
the epitaph engraved by Guido Novello upon the
* egregia sepoltura ' with which he intended to
honour the resting-place of Dante on his return
to Ravenna, after the expiration of his temporary
office of Capitano del Popolo.^ This was frustrated
by the treacherous plot which announced itself by
the brutal murder of Rainaldo da Polenta, Arch-
bishop of Ravenna, and brother of Guido Novello.
Documents still extant attest the immediate de-
parture of Guido for Ravenna, to avenge his
brother's death, and the prompt succour tendered
by the Bolognese, but in vain; he never re-entered
' Translation made by J. S. rhillimore, Esq., Ch. Ch., Oxford.
* Vide ante, p. 171.
12
178 Dante at Ravenna
the city, and thus the first project for the adornment
of the sepulchre, either by the hand of the sculptor
or the verse of the poet, came to nothing. That
the lines of Giovanni del Virgilio, however, were
preserved we owe to Boccaccio, who tells us that
he himself examined the poems of the competing
poets of the Romagna,
• and that as, on account of the great misfortune which
foiled the purpose of Guide Novello, they could not
appear on the tomb ; nor indeed, had it been otherwise,
could all the compositions have been inscribed there, but
only one most worthy of the honour — these verses, I
say, having been shown to me, and having examined
them all, I consider that, both as to style and sentiment,
the fourteen Unes by that great and famous poet,
Giovanni del Virgilio, the intimate friend, moreover, of
Dante, are the most worthy of preservation, and there-
fore 1 transcribe them here.'^
We have seen that Guido Novello was the
fortunate recipient of the earliest complete copy
of the * Divina Commedia ' ; but, it may be asked,
why did an interval of nine months elapse between
the death of Dante and the presentation of this
copy to his patron ? This is accounted for by a
very interesting contemporary anecdote related by
Boccaccio in his narrative, and corroborated by
Piero di Giardino, whose intimate relations with
Dante will be borne in mind by the reader.
' It was,' Boccaccio tells us, ' a habit with Dante, as
soon as he had finished six or eight cantos, before anyone
1 'Vita di Dante.'
The Dream of Jacopo Alighieri 179
else had seen them, to send them to Can Grande della
Scala, whom he esteemed more than any other living
man, and as soon as he had seen them, Dante would
then make a copy for anyone else who wished for it.
In this way, having sent him all but the last thirteen
cantos — these being done, but not as yet sent — it hap-
pened that Dante, not having any recollection that they
had not been sent, died ; and the survivors, both sons
and disciples, having sought many times and for many
months among all his writings for the completion of the
work, and not being able, in spite of all their efforts, to
discover the lost cantos, renewing again and again the
search, urged by the entreaties of every surviving friend
of the poet, coupled with bitter lamentations that God
had not lent him a little longer to the world, so as to
enable him to complete his work, they were driven to
distraction. Jacopo and Piero, the sons of Dante —
both of them more or less adepts in the art of verse —
urged by the persevering entreaties of the friends, were
about to attempt to supply the missing cantos, so that
their father's work might not go forth incomplete into
the world, when to Jacopo, who was of the two most
eagerly bent upon this course, a vision appeared, which
not only put an end to such presumptuous folly, but
also revealed to them where the thirteen missing cantos
were to be found, which hitherto they had sought for in
vain.
'A worthy citizen of Ravenna, PierGiardino byname,
and for a long time himself the pupil of Dante, was
wont to relate how, in the eighth month after the death
of his master, this same Jacopo arrived at his house in
the night, just near to the hour of dawn, and told him
that he had that very night, a very short time previously,
12 — 2
i8o Dante at Ravenna
seen a vision in his sleep of Dante, his father, clad in
white robes and with an unwonted light upon his face,
advance towards him ; that it seemed as if he, Jacopo,
then addressed him and asked him if he still lived ; to
which he replied, Yes, but that he was alive with a true
life — not with this of ours. Then it seemed as if he
(Jacopo) further asked him (Dante) whether before pass-
ing into the true life he had completed his work, and, if
he had completed it, where was the missing portion,
which they had sought in vain, to be found. To this
question he appeared to hear for the second time the
answer, Yes, I finished it. And then it seemed as if
the spirit took him by the hand and led him into the
chamber where he was wont to sleep when in life, and,
touching one part of it, he said, " It is here, that which
you have so long sought for." And having said this, it
seemed as if both the vision and his own sleep vanished
simultaneously, on which account he (Jacopo) would
declare that he was quite unable to keep from coming to
him (Pier Giardino) at once to relate what had occurred,
in order that they might both go together and search in
the spot indicated, of which he retained an accurate
recollection, in order to see if it had been pointed out
by a true spirit or was merely a false delusion of the
mind. Therefore, although it was still night, they set
off together, arrived at the spot indicated, and there they
found a stove fixed against the wall, the which yielded
easily to their efforts to move it, revealing behind it a
little window, which had hitherto entirely escaped their
observation — nor did they even know that it was there —
and in that window-seat they found some manuscript
sheets, mildewed and about to perish from the damp of
the walls. These, when cleansed from mildew, they per-
The Dream of Jacopo Alighieri i8i
ceived, on reading them, to be the thirteen lost cantos.
At this discovery they proceeded at once to copy them
and send them, according to the author's custom, to Can
(Grande della Scala), and then united them to the imper-
fect work in their due place. Thus the poem which it had
taken so many years to construct was completed at last.'^
The simple narrative of Boccaccio has been
given word for word as he received it from Pier
di Giardino.
That Pier di Giardino existed, that he was the
friend and pupil of Dante, present at his last
illness if not actual death, that he was alive when
Boccaccio came to Ravenna in 1346, are all
matters of proved histor)-, and these facts being
now patent to all, no purpose is gained by citing
those authorities who since, arguing from one
common basis, have either rejected with scorn,
or believed, or partly rejected and partly believed
the extraordinary vision.
But it must be pointed out that the negative
criticism which has eagerly assailed the credibility
of the narrator, the better to discredit his state-
ment, is not supported by the more recent investi-
gation of Boccaccio's literary work.
The Giornale Dantesco for the current 3'ear,
which contains two very interesting articles
entitled ' II culto del Boccaccio per Dante,' points
out how the whole of Boccaccio's work bears the
impress of his intense devotion to Dante, and that
more and more as his study deepened of the great
' Boccaccio, ' Vita di Dante,' pp. 63, 64.
1 82 Dante at Ravenna
Master, the result appears in his own work, till
the * Vita di Dante,' which was the last of
Boccaccio's writings, became ^
* a priceless jewel in Italian literature, redounding no less
to the glory of the biographer than the subject of the
biography. Besides the Italian editions of the " Vita di
Dante," we possess Latin translations and paraphrases
re-translated into Italian, which prove how, on its diffu-
sion, it became the common patrimony, so to speak, of
reader and copyist alike, the field upon which their
labours were concentrated.
' What, then, is the amount of reliance to be placed
upon the great novelist ?
' Shall we say with Aretino, Manetti, Filelfo, and
Gaddi, that he is careless and untrustworthy ? Shall we
share the sceptical opinion of his work held by Vellu-
tello, Biscioni, iNlaffei, Tiraboschi and Todeschini? Or
shall we go a little further, with Mercurio, and declare
that he is not the author of the work at all ? All these
exaggerated statements have been brought into the
crucible of modern criticism, and all now know that " II
Certaldese " (Boccaccio) made investigation, and drew
his information from the best and purest sources — from
Piero Giardino, for a long time the disciple of Dante ;
Andrea di Leon Poggi, the nephew by the mother's side
of Alighieri ; and Ser Dino Perini, another of his greatest
friends ; and all know that, if any of these witnesses gave
contradictory evidence, the biographer vindicated his
claim to a trustworthy narrative by honestly stating the
several versions, leaving the reader to the free exercise
of his own judgment.'^
^ Giornale Dantesco, Anno v., ii. della Nuova Serie, Quaderno vii.,
p. 304.
The Prophecy of Boccaccio 183
No less striking than the vindication of his
truth as a narrator has been the vindication of
his truth as a prophet as to the fate of the remains
of his Master. Following immediately upon his
recital of the death and burial of Dante, we find
in his narrative the short chapter of bitter reproof
to the Florentines/ which concludes with this
striking passage of prophecy :
' Thy Dante Alighieri has died in the unjust exile to
which thy envy of his just merit consigned him. Ah !
the shame of having to record that a mother was envious
of her own child. Now thou art freed from all further
alarm on that account; now by his death thou canst live
in unchecked security amid thy imperfections, and bring
thy prolonged unjust persecutions to an end. He can-
not do to thee, dead, what living he would never have
done. He sleeps beneath another sky than thine, nor
mayest thou ever hope to see him again, till that day
when thou wilt again see all thy citizens, to whom a just
Judge will give the final award. If then, as it has been
said, all anger, hatred and strife cease with the death of
whoever it is that dies, begin now to reflect within thy-
self, and in a calmer frame of mind begin to think with
shame of having acted contrary to thy wonted kindness ;
begin now to show thyself as mother rather than enemy,
and of thy mother's pity give to thy son the tears which
are his due ; and he whom thou didst reject, and when
in life didst drive away from thee, seek at least to regain
in death ; re-invest him with thy citizenship in thy bosom,
and let thy honours adorn his memory. . . . Seek, then,
to have the guardianship of thy Dante, asking to have
' ' Rimprovero ai Fiorentini. '
184 Dante at Ravenna
him back ; show that compassion at least, supposing it
not to be thy wish, and so with this fiction seek to
remove some of the blame of thy former conduct. I
tell thee, I am certain of it, that he will not be given
back to thee, and in that hour when, by asking for him,
thou wilt seek to show thy compassion, thou wilt, on
being refused, reap the reward of thy former innate
cruelty. But what am I advising thee to do ? Hardly
can I believe that, if dead bodies are capable of feeling,
that of Dante would wish to leave the place where it now
hes to return to thee. It lies in far more honourable
company than any thou couldst supply. He lies in
Ravenna, far more worthy of veneration than thou art,
and if now showing somewhat of the decay of age, in her
youth she flourished far more than thou ever wilt. She
holds as in one vast sepulchre the bodies of great and
holy men, so that there is no part of the city where you
can tread without feeling that their ashes lie beneath
you. Why, then, should the body of i:)ante desire to
return to thee, to lie among thy dead, who, it would
seem, preserve in death the anger and rabid factions of
life, and in their enmity flee the one from the other, like
the flames of the two Thebans ? Whereas Ravenna,
almost completely bathed in the blood of the martyrs,
where to this day their relics are reverently preserved,
and in like manner the bodies of many a magnificent
emperor, and other great and noble men, distinguished
both on account of their ancestry and good work, will
rejoice not a little that, besides all her other precious
dowry, it was also the gift of God to her to be the per-
petual guardian of such a treasure as is the body of him
whose works have held the admiration of the whole world,
of whom thou wert not worthy; and yet not so great will be
The Prophecy of Boccaccio 185
her joy at possessing him, but that her envy of thee from
whom he had his origin will be greater still, grieving that
she can only claim the record of his last day beside thee,
to whom belongs the first. And so remain with thy in-
gratitude, while to Ravenna, rejoicing in her honours, will
belong the triumph of posterity.'
Read by the light of subsequent history, the
prophecy is not a little extraordinary, so much so
that, although the facts are already known to
most students of Dante, no excuse will be required
for restating them here. So great were the vicis-
situdes which beset the remains of Dante, that it
would seem that as if in death no more than in
life was there to be a permanent place of rest for
' lo corpo dentro al qua! io feci ombra.'
In life we know that a clause in one of the
sentences of exile forbade the return of Dante to
Florence under pain of being burnt at the stake.
His body had not been in the grave eight years,
when it was threatened with the same fate. The
proposed desecration arose out of an unwarrant-
able use of his book ' De Monarchia.' The argu-
ments on which the treatise is based were twisted
by Ludovic of Bavaria to back the pretensions of
Piero della Corvara, the Antipope, whom he
created because John XXII., the reigning Pope,
had refused him the Imperial crown.
The book, hitherto almost unknown, became
famous by this unseemly controversy, and there-
fore on the defeat of Ludovic, the dispersal of the
Antipapal party, and the fall of the Antipope, the
i86 Dante at Ravenna
Papal Legate, Bertrando del Poggetto, was in-
structed to burn the book as an heretical com-
position. The bones of the author were condemned
to the same fate, and were only rescued from it by
the timely intervention of Pino della Tosa, a gentle-
man of Bologna, and Ostazio da Polenta, then in
power at Ravenna. But a Riminese monk, Guido
Vernano, of the Order of San Domenico, was in-
structed to prepare a refutation of the obnoxious
work, the MS. of which, * De Reprobatione
Monarchiae compositsea,' is still extant in the
archives of Ravenna. The MS. of the ' Morale '
of Pietro di Dante, which takes the form of ' II
Lamento delle Sette Arti ' over the condemnation
of Dante as a heretic, has also been preserved to
us. The contemplated desecration of his remains
would, it is observed with bitter sarcasm, have sur-
prised nobody, for
' what could signify the committal of a book and just a
handful of dry bones to the flames in those times, when,
in the name of the most edifying Christianity, men were
burnt, and not unfrequently in the full tide of life, sound
in body and mind ?'^
For more than sixty years after this first
attempt to violate the sepulchre the remains were
allowed to rest in peace. During this period one,
if not two, epitaphs were engraved upon the
sarcophagus. It has been said by some of the
writers upon this vexed question, that these epi-
1 ' uit. Rif.,' 193.
Menghino Mezzani 187
taphs displaced the lines by Giovanni del Virgilio.
But contemporary evidence does not seem to
support this theory.
Boccaccio, as we have seen, preserved the lines
in his Life of Dante, because they were 7iot engraved
upon the tomb, and from Menghino Mezzani's
sonnet to Bernardo da Canatro we certainly infer
that no inscription had hitherto adorned the sar-
cophagus. It will be remembered that he wrote
thus from his captivity to Bernardo ■}
' Thine, then, at last the pious tribute laid,
Messer Bernardo, at our Dante's feet,
Dearer to him because none else have made
Of all his other friends an offering meet.
* * * * *
Through thy device that name can never die.
Unless, indeed, first die this iron age.
Behold thy marble there, where every eye
Can read the lines from off the solid page.
Honour thus paid unto the senseless clay
Of thy great love in life shall fitly say.'
This sonnet, Bernardo's reply to Menghino
Mezzani, and the epitaph itself,^ are all to be found
attached to a fourteenth-century MS. of the
' Divina Commedia ' in the Bodleian Library.^
* Vide ante.
- MS. of epitaph by Bernardo Canacci aUached to page 193 of
a fourteenth-century parchment copy of the 'Divina Commedia.'
Bernardo Canaccio is describud as Bernardo ' Da Canatro.'
' Epitaffium ad Sepulcrum Dantis in Ravenna Urbe factum per
dominum Bernardum de Canatro.' — 'Jura Monarchia-,' etc.
' Bodleian Library, Canon. Ital., 97, 193.
1 88 Dante at Ravenna
The epitaph, with the prefix
' Epitafifium ad Sepulcrum Dantis in Ravenna
Urbe factum per Dominum Bernardum de Canatro,'
is as follows :
'Jura Monarchic, Superos, Phlegetonta, lacusque
Lustrando cecini voluerunt fata quousque
Sed quia pars cessit melioribus hospita castris
Actoremcjue suum petiit felicior astris,
Hie claudor Dantes, patriis extorris ab oris
Quern genuit parvi Florentia mater amoris.'
' The Rights of Monarehy, celestial realms,
Phlegethon, th' infernal lake, while traversing, I sung
Long as the fates so willed. Because of me
One part has ceased from here, and upwards soared
Happy towards its Author 'mid the stars,
To dwell in better tents, made welcome there.
Here lie I, Dante, banished from thy land,
Florence who bare me, mother scant of love.'
This inscription remains upon the tomb to this
day, but the second epitaph, which belongs to the
same period, always cited together with the 'Jura
Monarchiag ' of Bernardo da Canatro, has dis-
appeared from the sarcophagus. That it was once
there, and that it was inscribed at about the same
time above the one still e.xtant, it seems hardly
possible to doubt, after the discovery of the Cesena
copy of the ' Divina Commedia,' by Francesco di
Maestro Tura. Transcribed in 1378, it recites
that this second epitaph had been * recently
Epitaphs by Da Canatro and Mezzani 189
engraved ' ; that it occupied a place above the
* Jura Monarchias,' and that it was the work of
that discreet and learned man Menghino Mezzani
of Ravenna.^
This epitaph is as follows :
' Inclita fama cuius universum penetrat orbem
Dantes Aligherius florentina natus in urbe,
Conditor eloquio lumenque decusque latini
Vulnere saev^ necis stratus ad sidera tendens
Dominicis annis ter septem mille tercentis
Septembris idibus includitur aula superna.'
* He whose glorious fame reaches through the whole
world,
Dante Alighieri, born in the city of Florence,
The founder of the vernacular, the bright star and
honour of Latinity,
Laid low by the stroke of cruel death, bound for the
stars.
In the year of our Lord 1321, on the Ides of Sep-
tember 13th,
And is numbered in the Court of Heaven.'
Whether it was indeed written by Menghino
Mezzani after his release from captivity in 1350,
which probability is suggested by the statement
in the MS. of 1378 that it had been 'recently
engraved ' on the tomb, or whether it was, as
some say, the work of Jacopo Alighieri, it bears,
like the companion epitaph by Bernardo da
' Coflice della Divina Commedia, del Secolo xiv. Citato dal
De Batines, ii. 135, 237.
190 Dante at Ravenna
Canatro, the stamp of the age, and this should
make us lenient to the jumble of false quantities
which Dr. Moore hopes never did * disfigure the
poet's tomb.'^
We may, then, sum up the facts connected with
this first epoch of the sepulchre as follows : At
the death of Dante, September 13, 1321, Guido
Novello caused the remains to be provisionally
interred in a stone sarcophagus, evidently one of
the many ancient sarcophagi which to this day
remain a characteristic feature in Ravenna.
Guido, driven into exile, was foiled in his pur-
pose of erecting the noble sepulchre which he had
planned, and the sarcophagus appears to have re-
mained without ornament till past the middle of
the fourteenth century; only the name of the poet
inscribed upon it gave evidence of its precious
contents. Shortly after Boccaccio's second or
third visit to Ravenna, in 1353, the sarcophagus
appears to have been repolished, and either
simultaneously, or within a very short period of
each other, there appeared upon it the two
epitaphs cited above.
It was at the close of the year, December 22,
1396, that Florence made the first of those de-
mands for the remains of Dante which Boccaccio
in his prophecy had anticipated. This first claim
arose out of the decree that five monuments were
to be erected in Santa Maria del Fiore to the
most famous literary men of Florence. The name
' Historical Review, October, 1888.
Florence demands his Remains 191
of Dante stood second to that of Accursio, and
preceded that of Petrarch ; the names Zanobi da
Strada and Boccaccio completed the Hst.
It was probably in order that the bones of
Dante might rest beneath the proposed monu-
ment that Ravenna was solicited to restore them
to Florence. The demand being refused, the
request was reiterated on February i, 1429, on
the same plea, and it was again refused. But the
desire of the Florentines was stimulated and kept
alive by a certain Frate Antonio Neri, a preacher
of some fame, an appointed reader and lecturer
upon the * Divina Commedia ' in Florence in 1430-
1432. He caused to be painted and placed in the
cathedral a portrait of Dante, which has since
been displaced for that by Michelino in 1430.
But the old painting was inscribed with curious
and obscure lines, the sense of which has been
interpreted, with a note by Bartolomeo Ceffoni,
to this effect :
' These verses are a copy of those painted and written
into the old painting, which represents Dante in Santa
Liperata, otherwise Santa Maria del Fiore, where at this
present time (1430) Dante is being read by Antonio
Frate di San Francesco. This same Master Antonio
caused the said painting to be executed, to remind the
Florentines that they must bring back the bones of Dante
to Florence in order to do him the honour which he
deserves in a fitting place. '^
Stung by refusal, the Florentines began to cast
' Codice Riccard, 1036, A.c. 180, quoted in the ' Ultimo Rifugio,'
p. 381-
192 Dante at Ravenna
about for some powerful ally to support their
demand, so their next attempt was made in the
time of Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, April 17,
1476, through the Venetian Ambassador, urging
Venice to coerce Ravenna, then under her
dominion, into yielding up the coveted remains.
It is supposed, though not absolutely proved, that
this Ambassador was no other than Bernardo
Bembo, and that when he failed to influence his
Government in favour of the Florentine demand
for the restoration of the remains, he directed his
energies to adorning the place of their repose.
His epitaph is a record of the neglected condition
in which he found the sepulchre :
' Exigua tumuli Dantes hie sorte jacebas
Squallenti nuUi cognite pane situ.
At nunc marmoreo subnixus conderis arcu
Omnibus at cultu splendidiore nites.
Nimirum Bembus musis incensus ethruscis
Hoc tibi quern in primus hoc coluere dedit.
Ann. Sal. mcccclxxxiii. vi. Kal. Jvn.
Bernardus Bemb. Praet. cere sue Posuit.'
' Here, Dante, in the penurious chance of thy burial
Thou didst lie, scarce known to any man for the foul
neglect,
But now under a marble vault thou'rt laid to rest.
And shin'st with a brighter splendour than all.
For Bembo, fired by the Tuscan Muses,
Rendered this tribute to thee, their prime favourite.
The year of salvation 1483, the sixth day before the
first of June, Bernardo Bembo, Chief Magistrate,
erected this at his own cost.'
Bernardo Bembo 193
He placed the work in the hands of the
sculptor Pietro Lombard!, who was at that time
employed by the Republic to execute various works
in Ravenna, as, for example, the two columns in
the Piazza Maggiore. the one surmounted by the
symbolical Lion, the other by a statue of San
Apollinare/ and the image of St. Mark, now in
the cathedral.
These are only interesting as being the work
of the sculptor who adorned the tomb of Dante,
and whose work, almost as it originally stood,
can be seen to this day. The ingress to the tomb
was not altered by Pietro Lombardi, but was
still as it had hitherto been, from the Piazzetta.
Immediately opposite, with its back to the wall,
was the ancient * Area Lapidea,' which was re-
polished and somewhat reduced in dimensions
by the clever sculptor. He placed above it a
sculptured effigy in Istrian marble of Dante, with
the poet's laurel round his head, and the * vair '
tippet of a Doctor of Divinity upon his shoulders,
in the act of reading from an open book, which
rests on a desk in front of him. The face being
in profile, the traditional cast of feature is
accentuated by the sculptor, and it must be
freely owned that both in attitude and expression
it is a somewhat stiff and cramped representation
of the poet. The chin is supported by the left
hand, the right rests upon another book laid
open upon a table, where three volumes and an
^ Since displaced by that of San Vitale by Clemcnte Molli.
13
194 Dante at Ravenna
inkstand are also represented. Although more of
an effigy than a sculpture, the whole effect has a
certain merit and a character of its own. Pietro
Lombardijit has been well remarked by Cicognara,
approached his task more from the architect's
than from the sculptor's point of view, and the
architecture and decorations have a certain
chaste elegance characteristic of the period. The
basso-relievo, or effigy, is let into a background
of African veined marble, which must have
belonged at one time to some ancient monu-
ment at Ravenna. This in its turn has an
ornamentation of Grecian marble which forms
the setting and frame. The two materials are
blended in the same way in the architectural
ornamentation of the lunette above, which takes
the form of a funeral wreath, half laurel, half
palm, emblematic of the glory of the poet and
the suffering of the exile, and surrounds the motto
* Virtuti et Honori.' The same motto and the
same emblems are repeated on a smaller scale in
a little square of marble which was once an out-
side decoration, but is now inserted in the wall on
the left-hand side. This ornament carries a shield
in the centre, inscribed with the words
' His non cede Malis,'
freely interpreted :
' Because of the poet's crown,
Because of the martyr's palm,
I do not yield to misfortune.'
INTtklOR OI'' THE lO.Ml! OF DANTE.
7'o/acc />. iy4.
The Mysterious Letters S. V. F. 195
The sarcophagus itself, which originally was
on the same gigantic scale as those which
are still to be seen in S. Apollinare in Classe,
was somewhat reduced in its dimensions by
Lombardi, but the proof that it is the original
one in which the body was laid was clearly
established when it was opened in 1865. It was
then seen that the lower slab which formed the
bottom had received a faint but distinct impres-
sion of the skeleton. Had the sarcophagus been
sculptured anew out of the living marble in 1483,
and the remains then transferred to it, it is
evident that these, dry with the dust of a century
and a half, could have left no impression upon
the stone. The lid of the sarcophagus is sculp-
tured, like many of the ancient sarcophagi, in
imitation of the scales of a fish. It is raised on
a pedestal, and enclosed in a marble frame with
ornamentation like that of the upper part of the
tomb. Upon the face of it the sculptured imita-
tion of a white cloth drawn and fastened with nails
carries the epitaph by Bernardo da Canatro as it
appears to this day. It was replaced where it had
originally been by Bembo, with the prefix of the
three capitals S. V. F. These mysterious
letters have been the subject of much comment,
and have been variously interpreted; but it is sup-
posed that Bernardo Bembo followed a tradition
much in vogue at the time that Dante wrote his
own epitaph, and that, therefore, S. V. F. stand
for * Sibi Vivens Fecit ' : * Made by himself when
13—2
196 Dante at Ravenna
alive.' That it was a mistaken tradition arising
out of the use of the first person by Bernardo da
Canatro seems to be proved by the poetical inter-
change of sonnets between Bernardo da Canatro
and Menghino Mezzani, but that such a tradition
existed may possibly account for Bembo having
caused that epitaph only to be re-engraved upon
the tomb, discarding the other one, * Inclita
Fama,' which had, we believe, up to that time
been inscribed above it.
Such were the first adornments of the sepulchre
as they were completed by Bernardo Bembo at
the close of the fourteenth century. The suc-
ceeding century was yet in its youth when Florence
returned to the charge and made the most famous
and the most formidable of all her attempts, this
time being determined to possess herself by force
of the treasure which Ravenna had denied to her
reiterated entreaties. The Accademia Medicea
at Florence drew up the petition and addressed it,
not to Ravenna, but to Leo X., the Medici and
Florentine Pope, the patron of the belles-lettres
and the arts. Moreover, he was Lord of Ravenna,
for that city had by the League of Cambrai (1509)
passed under the Papal dominions. The petition of
the Medicaean Academy, bearing date October 20,
1519, had many signatures. Among these were
the names of Jacopo Nardi, Luigi Alamanni, Giro-
lamo Benivieni and Pietro Portinari, a descend-
ant of the family of Beatrice. Finally, it was
backed by Michael Angelo, who wrote across it :
Petition of the Accademia Medicea 197
* I, Michael Angelo, sculptor, supplicate your Holi-
ness in the same terms, offering myself to make
a worthy sepulchre for the divine poet in an
honoured place in this same city.' Leave was
granted, as we gather from a letter of Cardinal
Pietro Bembo — son of the very Bernardo Bembo
who had just completed the tomb — to the Floren-
tines to carry away the bones of Dante from
Ravenna to Florence, and every facility was given
them to execute their purpose. The Magistrate
and Council of Ravenna having refused to pay
an exorbitant demand of 150 florins of gold to
support the Papal Swiss Guard, Leo X. caused
them to be imprisoned in Cesena. At that
moment, while the city was deprived of its
natural protectors, the Envoys of Florence and
the President of the Romagna arrived in the dead
of the night to make good their claim. Fortified
v/ith the Papal authority, they betook themselves
to the tomb of Dante. They raised the stone lid
of the sarcophagus, intending to withdraw the
remains and transport them at last to Florence.
But their tyranny and their efforts were alike
in vain. The tomb was empty save for a frag-
ment of bone and a few withered leaves of the
laurel which had adorned the poet's head.
Ravenna had fought gallantly in the open field
so long as it was possible, but perceiving that on
this occasion she must be defeated by overwhelm-
ing odds, she had had recourse to strategy.
For nearly three and a half centuries no one
198 Dante at Ravenna
knew what that strategy was. The first attempt
to account for the loss of the remains is charac-
teristic of the times :
' And thus,' recites the memorial drawn up by Carlo
Nardi to Pope Leo, ' there could be no translation made
of the bones of Dante, because the deputies from the
Accademia (Medicea) having visited his tomb, they found
Dante neither in soul nor yet in body ; and it being
believed that he had in his lifetime, in body as well as in
spirit, made the journey through the Inferno, Purgatorio,
and Paradiso, so in death it must now be assumed that in
body as well as in spirit in either one or other of those
realms he has been received and welcomed.'
Whether or not this explanation was considered
satisfactory we do not know, but the very sudden
death of Leo X. early in the following year may
account for no steps having been taken to press
the matter further at the time. But to
Clement VII., successor to Leo X., a sonnet
was speedily addressed by Alvisi reciting the
failure of the attempt of his brother Leone,
* Sommo Pastore,' urging him to punish the
Ravennese who had stolen away the bones, and,
with a pun on his name, to show ' clemency ' to
Dante by restoring his remains to an honoured
place in Florence.
Clement VII., of a different disposition to
Leo X., was too engrossed with political diffi-
culties to have either time or inclination to follow
up the quest, and Florence, daunted by the hope-
The Chapel of Braccioforte 199
lessness of the empty tomb, seems to have given
up the task in despair.
In Ravenna the tradition of the loss was
studiously shrouded in myster}', if not altogether
concealed. But there was always a floating sense
of uneasiness amongst the populace upon the
subject.
About the middle of the seventeenth century, the
Franciscans made considerable alterations in the
chapel of Braccioforte, adjoining the tomb of
Dante. This chapel, dedicated first to the
Nativity of the Saviour, subsequently to San
Pier Crisologo, owes its present name to a tradi-
tion connected with a very ancient wooden
Crucifix which it contained, and which was held
by the people in great veneration. Andrea
Agnello, the historian of the ninth century, re-
cords that on one occasion two friends came to
the chapel, and solemnly called upon the Crucifix
to be witness to a secret loan between them.
The lender, exhibiting the money he was about
to lend to his friend, made his invocation
thus :
* O Lord God Omnipotent, do Thou be my
surety for this act.'
The friend, having received the money, went
away to the East without any thought of returning
to Ravenna. The lender, at last weary of wait-
ing, betook himself again to the chapel, and,
standing in front of the Crucifix, called upon the
effigy of the Saviour to make good the surety-
200 Dante at Ravenna
ship, and, by the might of the strong arm (braccio
forte) of God, to maintain his cause.
The historian goes on to relate how the strong
arm of God brought back the debtor from the Far
East, and made him pay all that was due, so that
the two friends went their ways in peace, and the
chapel has ever since borne the name of Braccio
Forte — the Strong Arm of God.
This ancient chapel was originally connected
with the tomb of Dante by a portico with marble
columns. This portico appears to have been
altogether removed by the Franciscans in 1658,
when they were making considerable alterations
in their church and convent. The doorway of
the chapel, which corresponded with the entrance
to the tomb of Dante, was blocked up, and
another access was given from the chapel into the
church. The sepulchre was reconstructed, with
the entrance to the north, facing the Piazza
Maggiore, as we see it to this day.
But the Franciscans, absorbed in the larger
repairs of their church and convent, contented
themselves with reconstructing the exterior of the
tomb, leaving the interior in such a state of neglect
that Cardinal Corsi, the Papal Legate, following
the example of Bernardo Bembo, determined to
rescue it once more from such a condition. He
had not, however, taken into account the indig-
nant opposition of the Franciscan Brotherhood.
They claimed jurisdiction over the sepulchre, and
so harassed the stone-masons engaged upon the
Epitaph by Cardinal Corsi 201
work of restoration that the Cardinal was obhged
to apply for a guard of forty sbirri to protect the
workmen, who laboured without intermission day
and night till the restoration was completed,
May 4, 1692. Then the Cardinal wrote in turn
his epitaph, and caused it to be placed upon the
tomb. It runs as follows :
' Exvlem a Florentia Dantem Liberalissime
Excepit Ravenna.
Vivo fruens Mortvvm colens
Magnis cineribus licet in parvo magnifici parentarvnt
Polentani Principes erigendo
Bembvs Praetor Lvcvlentissime extrvendo
Praatiosum Mysis et Apollini Mavsoleum
Quod injvria temporvm pane sqvallens
E. vTio Dominico Maria Cvrsio Legato
Joanne Salviato Prolegato
Magni civis cineres Patriae reconciliare
Cvltus perpetvitate cvrantibvs
S. P. Q. R.
JVRE Ac Acre suo.
Tanquam Thesavrvm svvm mvnivit
Instav ravitornavit
A.D. MDCXCII.'
' When Dante was exiled from Florence
Ravenna most generously received him,
Rejoicing in him alive, and honouring him dead.
To his great ashes
(Though such a field was small for their magnificence)
The Princes of Polenta by erecting, and Bembo the
Praetor by sumptuously adorning,
202 Dante at Ravenna
A sepulchre precious to the Muses and Apollo,
Did pious service.
Which sepulchre,
Almost decayed by the injuries of Time,
The Council and People of Ravenna
The most Eminent Domenico Maria Corsi, the Legate,
And Giovanni Salviati, the Prolegate,
Making it their charge
To reconcile, by perpetual honour, to his own country
Their great citizen,
In their own right, and at their own cost,
Did establish, repair, and adorn.
A.D. MDCXCII.'^
Not satisfied with this written record of his
restoration, the Cardinal emphasized his share in
it by causing his coat of arms to be engraved on a
shield outside the tomb, flanked by that of
Monsignore Salviati, Legate of the province, on
one side, and that of the Franciscan community
on the other.
The report of the master-builder Cicognini is
preserved, in which he states that he completed
his work under the guard, and with the protec-
tion of forty sbirri, while the Fathers of the
venerable convent of San Francesco came con-
stantly to the spot, complaining and lamenting,
and making all the disturbance they could to
hinder the work. There is also extant the testi-
mony of the sculptor Berthoz :
•In the month of June, 1692, I engraved in marble,
with great care, the three coats of arms, according to the
^ Translation by J. S. Phillimore, Esq.
Question of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction 203
orders which I had received. Moreover, I solemnly
attest that at the same time the workmen under my
direction polished the marble of the sepulchral urn which
contains, // is said, the bones of Dante the Poet, and all
the other surrounding marbles which adorn the tomb.'
The significant words, * it is said,' show that
the sculptor was well aware of the tradition of the
empty sarcophagus.
The question was again raised during the legal
proceedings which ensued between the magistrates
of Ravenna, backed by Cardinal Corsi, and the
Franciscan Brothers, as to the right of jurisdiction
over the sepulchre. The matter reached a climax
when an escaped felon claimed the right of sanc-
tuary within the precincts of the tomb of Dante.
The Padre Guardiano of the Franciscans claimed
the right of ecclesiastical immunity for the
wretched man, who was, notwithstanding, forcibly
dragged back to prison.
The authorities, still backed by the Vatican, had
recourse, to justify their action, to the argument
that Dante having been condemned as a heretic
after death, the place of his burial, far from having
any claim to the rights of a sanctuary, was, on
the contrary, polluted ! Then the Franciscans
themselves made use of the rumour that the bones
were no longer there, rather than lose their right
of jurisdiction over the sepulchre. The magis-
trates declared that by the recent repairs the
sepulchre stood isolated, the Franciscans that it
still rested with its back to the wall of the con-
204 Dante at Ravenna
vent. Moreover, they pointed triumphantly to
the shield of their community which the Cardinal
had himself affixed to the sepulchre.
Thus the dispute continued in more or less
degree throughout the century. The Franciscan
Brothers, by sheer obstinacy, held their own,
and wearied out the Vatican, so that we actually
find Cardinal Valentino Gonzaga, the Papal
Legate, taking them into his counsels when he
undertook, in 1780, under the auspices of Pius VI.,
the third and last restoration of the tomb. This
time, Camillo Morigia, a gentleman and native of
Ravenna, was chosen as the architect. Preserv-
ing the work of Lombardi inside, he threw the
exterior into the shape of the little mausoleum or
temple which it now assumes.
The florid style of the period, adapted for some
mock classic memorial in a pleasure-garden, sur-
rounded with myrtles and weeping willows, ill
accords with the severity of the Franciscan
environments, the dark foliage of the tall cypress,
the grim tower of San Francesco, black with
centuries, rising behind it, still less with the
stern grandeur of the poet himself. The work
was complete when the Gonzaga shield was
made to crown the entrance.
The mausoleum was inaugurated in June, 1782,
when a meeting of the Accademia degli Informi,
in Ravenna, was assembled to celebrate the occa-
sion by compositions in prose and verse, which,
as an Italian writer observes, 'had more to say
Epitaph by Cardinal Gonzaga 205
about the Cardinal than about Dante.' Under-
neath the sarcophagus the Cardinal placed a
marble urn, in which were enclosed some coins of
the time of Pius VI., and a parchment relating
the extent and cost of the undertaking. He then
wrote, as follows, the sixth and last epitaph :
' Danti Alighiero
Poetse . svi . Temporis . Prime
Restitvtori
Politioris Hvmanitatis
Gvido . at Hostasius Polentiani
Clienti . et Hospiti . Peregre . Defvncto
Monvmentum . Fecervnt
Bernardus . Bembus . Praetor . Venet . Ravenn .
Pro . Meritis . Eivs . Ornatu . Excolvit
Aloysivs . Valentivs . Gonzaga . Card
Leg. Prov. ^mil.
Svperiorvm . Temporvm . Negligenti Corrvptvm
Operibvs Ampliatis.
Mvnificentia . sva Restitvendvm.
Cvravit.
Anno . Mucc.Lxxx.'
'To Dante Alighieri,
The first Poet of his Time,
The restorer of Classical Elegance and Learning,
Dead in a foreign country,
Guido and Hostasio Polenziano
His Patron and Host
Erected this Monument.
Bernardo Bembo, Governor for Venice at Ravenna,
Decorated and adorned it
As Dante deserved.
2o6 Dante at Ravenna
Aloisio Valenzio Gonzaga, Cardinal
Legate for the Province of Emilia,
Of his munificence
Improved and restored
What the neglect of preceding generations had allowed to
decay.
A.D. MDCCLXXX.'^
It now remained to prove that the tomb which
he had so lavishly adorned was indeed the recep-
tacle of the remains of the poet ; therefore, in the
presence of a few selected witnesses sworn to
secrecy, the sarcophagus was opened. The
Cardinal was obliged to take refuge in ambiguous
phrases to conceal the result from the people.
But the entry of one of the Franciscan friars in
a missal, now in the hands of the Municipio at
Ravenna, states the bald fact :
' The cofifin of Dante was opened, and nothing was
found inside, so it was sealed up again with the Car-
dinal's signet ring, and strict silence was observed as to
everything.'
The Franciscans may have found a not un-
natural solace for the loss of their jurisdiction
over the tomb by making this record, for we read
that the Cardinal, on leaving Ravenna, placed the
key in the hands of the magistrate, and, nothing
daunted by the result of the investigation, recom-
mended to his most careful preservation so noble
and so glorious a relic of the past.
Two Cardinals, both Papal Legates, in two suc-
^ Translation by J. S. Phillimore, Esq.
The Republique Cisalpine 207
ceeding centuries had spent themselves in adorn-
ing the tomb of Dante. Their sculptured coats of
arms made part of its architectural ornament, and
florid epitaphs connected their names with his.
Then, by a curious irony of fate, the Republique
Cisalpine came upon the well - worn scene.
Dressed in their little brief authority, they made
use of it to remind the people of Ravenna, as
citizens and brothers, that the great champion,
who had exposed the ' imposture of sacerdota-
lism,' the Signor dell' Altissimo Canto, the Divine
Dante, was their fellow-citizen, and that his
glorious memory must be democratically cele-
brated, bidding them hasten with laurel and myrtle
to his tomb to shed the tears which flow from the
eyes of a patriot over a genius who has deserved
well of humanity.
The deputies of the Republique Cisalpine do
not appear to have been troubled with any dis-
quieting fears that they were paying homage to
an empty shrine ; but in 1841 we find the fact
again stated with unmistakable plainness in
Filippo Mordani's memoirs of Dionigi Strocchi.
He recounts that on July i, 1841, Dionigi Strocchi
said to him :
' There is something I wish to tell you, now that we
are alone. Do you know that the coffin of Dante is
empty ; the bones are no longer there. The Archbishop
Monsignore Codronchi told me this ; but do not breathe
a word about it, for it is a secret.'^
' F. Mordani ' Operette tlella Vita privata di L. Strocchi,'
vol. iii., p, 232.
2o8 Dante at Ravenna
Another quarter of a century and the festivities
for the sexcentenary of Dante's birth were being
celebrated all over Italy. They were made the
occasion by Florence for her last demand for his
remains. The Municipio of Florence wrote as
follows to the Municipio of Ravenna, May 7, 1864 :
' One of the first considerations present to the minds
of the Commissioners^ is the eager desire that the remains
of the great poet should be laid to rest in his native city ;
and because this desire is most warmly shared by all alike,
and that it was debated for a long while how it should
be expressed, it was decided that publicly, by means of
the press and by private initiative, the Commission
should interpret to you the general wish of the people.'
II Carobbi, the Gonfaloniere that year, address-
ing himself to the chief magistrate of Ravenna,
then added :
' I am sure you will make use of all your influence
before the Common Council to obtain a favourable reply
to the demand of the Florentines, because by this act
they desire to repair the wrong done by their ancestors,
and the disastrous treatment Dante has received at their
hands.'
The Municipio of Ravenna replied briefly that
they could not grant the request, and that
' The deposit of the sacred remains of Dante Alighieri
in Ravenna could no longer, owing to the happily altered
conditions of Italy, be looked upon as a perpetuation of
^ Appointed by the Government to arrange the plan of the
festivities.
Discovery of the Remains 209
his exile, as all the cities of Italy were now united in one
enduring bond under one rule.'
Even while they drew up this reply, there must
have been a strong prevaiHng impression in their
minds that in truth the coveted remains were no
longer in the sepulchre at all. However, the
finale of the great festival, which was naturally to
take place at Ravenna, was drawing near, and the
climax at hand when the coffin would be opened
for the purpose of verifying the remains.
The workmen were actually engaged in making
preparations for the scaffolding round the tomb,
so as to enable the bystanders to obtain a better
view of the ceremony. A portion of the outer
wall of the adjoining Chapel of Braccioforte,
which had blocked the original ingress to the
chapel, had been demolished, and a further
clearance was contemplated, when it became
necessary to introduce a pump to get rid of the
water which proved a constant hindrance to the
work. The pump was placed in the angle made
by the Fantuzzi, afterwards called the Rasponi,
Chapel and that of Braccioforte, but it was found
that the handle could not work on account of
some fragments still standing of the wall which
had taken the place of the original entrance.
The inspector of the works, G. B. Lorenzetti,
then directed the principal stone-mason, Pio di
Luigi Felletti, to take away a few of the stones of
the blocked doorway so as to give play to the
handle of the pump. The mason, trying now
14
2IO Dante at Ravenna
here and now there to introduce his mattock into
the wall, suddenly came upon a cavity, and felt
his tool strike against wood which gave back a
hollow sound. His curiosity being roused, the
mason removed carefully other surrounding stones,
when there appeared a wooden box which partially
fell to pieces, revealing some portions of a human
skeleton. At the bottom of the box was the in-
scription :
' Dantis Ossa Denuper revisa die 3 Junii 1677,'
and further examination discovered another in-
scription similarly written on one of the outer
planks of the chest :
' Dantis Ossa
A Me
Fra Antonio Santi
Hie posita. Anno 1677
Die 18 Octobris.'
Amazed at this discovery, Felletti and Angelo
Dradi, his fellow-workman, quickly replaced the
bones in the box, and, securing it as best they
could, conveyed the precious receptacle into the
adjoining mausoleum of Dante. In a very short
time the news of the discovery spread like wild-
fire through the city. The authorities arrived in
haste, and in their presence a deed was drawn up
by the notary, stating the discovery, while the
populace outside could hardly be restrained from
Discovery of the Remains 211
breaking down the iron gate of the mausoleum in
their mixed frenzy of curiosity and joy, while they
remembered a tradition current in the city, that
the Chapel of Braccioforte contained a treasure
which one day would be yielded up.
Medical experts — Professor Cavaliere Giovanni
Puglioli and Claudio Bertozzi — made a careful
examination of the bones, and proceeded to re-
construct the skeleton. The minutiae of their
examination, though full of interest for a medical
or scientific treatise, would not be fitly placed
here, but for the purpose of identification they
were all sufficient to prove that the remains were
indeed those of Dante. The stature answered to
that of the poet as nearly as the measurement of
a skeleton can represent the living form, and the
skull found in the chest corresponded exactly with
the mask taken from Dante's face immediately
after his death, which was brought from Florence
for the purpose of making this comparison.
The next step was to examine the sarcophagus
in the chapel, and here we will quote the words of
Dr. Moore, who received from an eye-witness the
account of the proceedings :
' The writer [i.e., Dr. Moore] met, a few years ago, one
who was present on this most interesting occasion, and
who had carried away, and still preserved as a relic, a
small portion of the precious dust which was found at
the bottom of the tomb. This examination took place
on June 7, 1865, and i/ie tomb 7va$ then found to be empty,
14 — 2
212 Dante at Ravenna
with the exception of a little earthy or dusty substance,
and a few bones corresponding with most of those miss-
ing in the chest recently discovered, and these were
certified by the surgeon present to belong undoubtedly
to the same skeleton. There were found in it, also, a
few withered laurel leaves, which possess a special
interest in reference to the description of Dante's burial
to which we have already referred. It contained, further,
some broken fragments of Greek marble, of the same
material as the sarcophagus itself. These were soon
found to proceed from a rude hole which had been
knocked through the sarcophagus at the back, precisely
at the part accessible only from the inside of the monas-
tery, through which, beyond all doubt, the removal of
the bones had been effected. This hole had been
stopped up with bricks and cement, and then plastered
over outside so as to leave no mark.'^
By the light of subsequent history we must now
retrace our steps to the period of the abstraction
of the remains from the sepulchre. In 1483, the
date of the reconstruction of the tomb by Ber-
nardo Bembo, the remains were in it, and were
naturally left there. Bernardo's epitaph, already
cited at length, and still to be seen upon the left
wall of the mausoleum, is a standing record of
the fact. In 1520, when about to be claimed
by the Florentines, they were gone. But it
was not till April 14, 1890, that the culminating
proof was supplied as to how the removal of the
' Historical Review, October, 1888, ' The Tomh of Dante,'
p. 648.
The Franciscan Stratagem 213
remains had been effected. Signer Ricci describes
that on that day he obtained leave from Mon-
signore Uberti, the priest in charge of the Church
of San Francesco, to enter the monastery, and
having marked on the wall of the cloister the
exact place corresponding with the broken part
of the sarcophagus of Dante on the other side,
the bricklayers were instructed to chip away the
plaster from the wall. They had hardly been at
work half an hour, when the uneven surface of
the wall, exactly behind the sarcophagus, betrayed
where the hole had been made, the even course of
the bricks being interrupted and broken, and then
filled up again with different material, brickbats,
and rubble. Here, then, was the aperture made
by the Franciscan Brotherhood, through which,
in the dead of the night, in the year 1520, they
had withdrawn the bones of Dante from their
tomb, to save them for Ravenna from the cove-
tous grasp of Florence.
But as the first inscription by Fra Antonio,
' Denuper revisa ' (revisited anew), bears date
June 3, 1677, and the second, 'Hie Posita,' October,
1677, it is evident that the remains must have
been preserved somewhere in the convent for more
than one hundred and fifty years before, at the date
of the second inscription, they were built into the
new piece of the wall erected to block the old
entrance to the Braccioforte chapel.
This, no doubt, furnished the opportunity long
coveted for depositing them in a place of safety.
214 Dante at Ravenna
where no despoiler could reach them. Fra
Antonio did not let it slip. He hastened to
relieve the Franciscan Superiors from the burden
of a secret which must have been transmitted
by each in turn to his successor in office for
a century and a half. It is recorded that Fra
Antonio Santi occupied an important official
position in the convent in 1672, and held it till
after 1677, the date of his inscription. He was
alive in 1703, when Cardinal Corsi was busying
himself with the repairs of the tomb, and was
obliged to send forty sbirri to protect his work-
men from the harassing attacks of the Fran-
ciscans, who probably feared the discovery of
their secret. It was fortunate for Fra Antonio
and his brotherhood that the Cardinal's repairs
did not extend to the sarcophagus itself. At length
the works were completed.
The Padre Superiore must have drawn a long
breath of relief, and a vague tradition prevailed
among the Frati, which they kept secret among
themselves, that the chapel of Braccioforte con-
tained a great treasure.
As late as 1865, a writer states that at that
time relatives of the last Warden were still exist-
ing who remembered having heard of the same
tradition from his lips.
There was yet another tradition present to the
minds of the people at the time of the great dis-
covery.
The Dream of the Sacristan 215
The sacristan of the Franciscan Confraternity,
called La Confraternita della Mercede, was wont
to sleep in the damp recesses of the ancient
chapel of Braccioforte. His name was Angelo
Grillo. Ricci,^ in his great work, tells us that in
1890 there were many who remembered him in
Ravenna, and that he used to indicate the corner
of the chapel where the doorway had been blocked
up, and to relate a dream which, though turned
into ridicule at the time, when viewed by the
light of subsequent events is at least worthy of
attention. The narrative is as follows :
The sacristan declared himself to have seen
in his dream a shade issue from the spot indi-
cated, clad in red, and that it passed through the
chapel into the adjoining cemetery. It approached
him, and, on being asked who it was, replied, ' I
am Dante.'
The sacristan died in May, 1865. A few days
afterwards (it will be remembered that the 27th
was the day of the discovery), in that very angle
of the chapel where the doorway had been
blocked, were found the bones of Dante. It
was not a posthumous dream, or a story made
up after the event by the old sacristan, for, being
dead, he was not there to make it. The facts are
as they stand, and as lately as 1890 there were
witnesses alive to prove them. They bear a
curiously close resemblance to the dream of
^ ' Uh. Rif.,' p. 174.
2i6 Dante at Ravenna
Jacopo Alighieri, as recorded by Boccaccio,
which has been so studiously discredited by the
negative attacks of modern criticism.
This last touch of the marvellous forms the
concluding link to the chain of an undoubtedly
remarkable history, which those who visit Ravenna
can verify for themselves. On the wall of the
cloister in San Francesco they can read the in-
scription which recites how that was the very
spot where, at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the aperture was made by the Fran-
ciscans, through which they penetrated into the
sarcophagus of Dante, and withdrew from it his
remains, thus securing for ever the possession of
them to Ravenna.
In the Biblioteca Nazionale they can see the
wooden chest, or box, carefully preserved, exactly
as it was, with the two inscriptions by Fra
Antonio Santi, and the Custodian of the library,
Achille Pasquali, will tell them, as he told the
writer of these pages, that he had himself seen
the box fall from the wall and empty its precious
contents upon the ground. In the same place
can also be seen the cast taken from the skeleton
in the glass coffin where the remains themselves
were exposed to the exultant populace of Ravenna.
For three days, June 24, 25, and 26, they lay in
state in the midst of the ancient chapel of
Braccioforte, that through the now opened arch-
way they might be visible to the thronging crowds
'Italia Una' before the Tomb of Dante 217
who came in hundreds and thousands from all
parts of Italy to file before the crystal coffin.
The old and the infirm were supported through
the crowd, and children too young to be con-
scious of what they saw were taken up to the
coffin, in order that in after-years they might say
that they also had gazed on Dante.
Finally, on June 26, the remains were once more
consigned to their original tomb. ' Italia Una,'
represented by every province and every town,
stood uncovered before that bier, and assisted,
with every pomp of circumstance and every mark
of respect, to lay at last to undisturbed rest the
greatest of her sons.
Still the nation deliberates how to raise a fitting
monument to his memory, and perhaps the day
will come when the little, quiet sixteenth-centurj'
monument will, like the Porziuncula of St. Francis
of Assisi, have as grand an environment as the
chapel of Sta. Maria degli Angeli.
Some such tribute to their ' great heir of fame '
might be more in accordance with the greatness
of a free, united kingdom, but it could not
enhance the greatness of Dante, and in the per-
fect simplicity and thoughtful attitude of the
figure in bas-relief, still reading, still pondering,
there is something which suggests the one aim of
his life upon earth, ' Diligite justitiam ' (Love
righteousness), and, when that life was completed,
the reflection :
21 8 Dante at Ravenna
' Qual si lamenta perchc (jui si muoia
Per viver colassu non vide quivi
Lo refrigerio dell' eterna ploia.'
Par., xiv. 23.
Whoso laments that we must doff this garb
Of frail mortality, thenceforth to live
Immortally above, he hath not seen
The sweet refreshing of that heavenly shower.'
THE END.
Elliot SiOck, 62, Patettwster Row, London.
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below
JAN 1 2 1949
.tCj^UBIg
1973
DEC26t97!i
iW
4 1974
^ MAR 12 19^5
JUN3 0 ]9Z&.
QL P(Reoki77
JUL 2 a 1977
in L-n
-I0.'41<2I91)
iJeiL LiiiKAKy
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNiA
LOS Ai-^GELES
UC SOUTHERN REGIOrjAL LIBRARY FACILITY
AA 000 421 972
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11