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DANTE

Ubc Dilettante Xtbrar^.

1. DANTE AND HIS IDEAL. By Herbert Bayxes,

M. R.A.S. With a Portrait.

•2. BROWNING'S MESSAGE TO HIS TIMES. By

Dr. Edwabd Bkedoe. With a Portrait and Fac-
simile Letters.

3^. THE DOCTOR, AND OTHER POEMS. By

T. E. Bhowve, M.A., of CUEton College, Author of
"Fo'c's'le Yarns." 2 vols.

5. GOETHE. By Oscar Browxixg, With a

Frontispiece.

6. DANTE. By Oscar Browxixg. With a |

Frontispiece. I

Xos. 5 and 6 are enlarged from the articles in the |

" Encyclopoedia Britannica."

7. BROWNING'S CRITICISM OF LIFE. By W. F.

Revbll, Member of the London Browning Society.

8. HENRIK IBSEN. Bv the Rev. Philip H. Wick- j

STEED, M.A. j

9. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. By JoHX Uxder- j

HILL. !

I

cJoT/i/j- p/ 2)£urde M i

DANTE

Ibis life ant) miritings

BY

OSCAR BROWNING

LONDON

swa:?- soxnexscheix & co

New York : MACMILLAN & CO
1891

(LO
HE:N^EY MONTAGU BUTLEE,

MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,

"WHO riRST TAUGHT ME TO K^OW

AND LOVE DANTE.

PREFACE

This book is based upon an article in
the last edition of the Encyclojpcedia
Britannica. It has been carefully
revised in accordance with the most
recent publications on the subject, the
most important of which is the volume
of Prolegomeni which completes Scar-
tazzini's edition of the Bivina Cora-
media,

CONTEXTS

PAGK

Family axd Bikth 1

Education 4

Friends 8

Political Life 11

Beatrice 19

Office 24

Exile 31

Dante's Ghibellinism 34

Wandebings 38

Old Age and Death 43

Chabacter of Dante's Genius 47

" Contitg" 57

" De Vulgabi Eloquently" 59

" De Monabchia " CI

Eclogues 64

Lettebs 65

" De Aqua et Terba " 68

"DiYiNA Commedia" 70

Hell 77

Purgatoby 85

Pabadise 89

BlBLIOGP^PHY 93

vii

DANTE

Daxte, or Durante Ali^hieri, was born Family

^ and

at Florence about the middle of May, ^i^th.
1265. He was descended from an
ancient family, but not one of the
liighest rank. His biographers have
attempted on very slight grounds to
deduce his origin from the Frangipani,
one of the oldest senatorial families of
Rome. AVe can affirm with greater cer-
tainty that he was connected with the
Elisei who took part in the building
of Florence under Charles the Great.
Dante himself does not, with the excep-
' B

2 DANTE.

tion of a fe^v obscure and scattered
allusions, carry liis ancestry beyond tbe
warrior Cacciaguida, wliom lie met in
Paredri, in the spliere of Mars {Var.
XV. 87-148). Cacciaguida there tells
his descendant that he was born at
Florence, and was baptized there in the
Baptistry of San Griovanni, that he had
two brothers, Moronte and Eliseo, that
he married a wife who was born in the
valley of the Po, that he accompanied
the Emperor Conrad III. upon his cru-
sade into the Holy Land, where he died
among the infidels. In the following
canto (xvi. 3-4, foil.), Cacciaguida further
states that he was born in the se^io
of Porta San Pietro, in the very centre
of the city. Of Cacciaguida's brothers
Moronte and Eliseo we know absolutely

DAXTE'S FAMILY. 3

nothing. He had two sons Alighiero
and. Preitenitto. Alighiero had also
two sons, Bello and Bellincione. Bello
was father of Geri del Bello, placed by
Dante in the Inferno, and of three other
sons. Bellincione had amongfst other
sons a second Alighiero, father of the
famous poet. This Alighiero married
Lapi di Chiarissimo Cialuffi, and after his
death a certain Madonna Bella, whose
surname is not known. Alighiero
had one daughter, who was married
to Leone Poggi, a son, Francesco, who
married Pietra di Donato Brunatti,
and a son, Dante. Thus the family of
Dante held a respectable but not a
noble position among the citizens of
his beloved Florence. Had they been
reckoned in the very first rank, they

4 DANTE.

could not liave remained in Florence
after the defeat of the Guelfs at Monta-
perti in 1260. It is clear, however,
that Dante's mother did so remain, for
Dante was born in Florence in 1265.
The heads of the Gruelf party did not
return till after the battle of Beneven-
tum, which was fought on February
26, 1266.

Dante was born under the sig^n of
the twins, " the glorious stars pregnant
with virtue, to whom he owes his genius
such as it is." Astrologers considered
this constellation as favourable to litera-
ture and science, and Brunetto Latini,
Dante's preceptor, tells him in \\\^Inferno
(xv. 25, foil.) that, if he follows its
guidance, he cannot fail to reach the
harbour of fame. Boccaccio relates

EDUCATION. 5

that before liis birtli his mother dreamed
that slie lay mider a very lofty laurel,
o^rowino- in a Q^reen meadow, by a very
clear fountain, when she felt the pangs
of childbirth; that her child, feeding
on the berries which fell from the
k\urel, and on the waters of the fountain,
in a very short time became a shepherd,
and attempted to reach the leaves of the
laurel, the fruit of which had nurtured
him; that, trying to obtain them, he
fell, and rose up, no longer a man, but
in the guise of a peacock. AVe know
little of Dante's boyhood except that
he was a hard student and a pupil of
Brunetto Latini. Boccaccio tells us
that he became very familiar with Vergil,
Horace, Ovid, and Statins, and all other
famous poets ; and that, " taken by the

6 DANTE.

sweetness of knowing the trutli of tlie
things concealed in heaven, and finding-
no other pleasure dearer to him in life,
he left all other worldly care and gave
himself to this alone ; and that no part
of philosophy might remain unseen by
him, he plunged with acute intellect into
the deepest recesses of theology, and so
far succeeded in his design that, caring-
nothing for heat or cold, or watchings
or fastings, or any other bodily discom-
forts, by assiduous study he came to
know of the divine essence and of the
other separate intelligences all that
the human intellect can comprehend."
Leonardo Bruni says that " by study
of philosophy, of theology, astrology,
arithmetic, and geometry, by reading
of history, by the turning over many

BRUNEI TO LAllNL 7

curious books, watcliixig and sweating
in his studies, he acquired the science
which he was to adorn and explain in
his verses." Of his teacher, Brunetto
Latini, of whom he speaks with the
most loving gratitude and affection, but
whose gross vices he does not hesitate
to brand with infamy, Giovanni Yillani
has left us a graphic picture : " He
was a great philosopher, and a consum-
mate master of rhetoric, not only in
knowing how to speak Avell, but how to
write well. He it was who explained
the rhetoric of Tully and made the good
and useful book called Tesoro, and the
Tesoretto and the Chiave del Tesoro, and
other works in philosophy and of vices
and virtues, and he was secretary of our
commune. He was a worldly man ; but

8 DANTE.

Ave have made mention of him because
he both beo^an and directed the o^rowth
of the Florentines, both in making them
ready in speaking well and in knowing
how to guide and direct our republic
according to the* rules of politics.".
Under this guidance Dante became
master of all the science of his age
at a time when it was not impossible
to know all that could be known. He
was a skilful draughtsman, and tells us
that on the anniversary of the death of
Beatrice he drew an angel on a tablet.
Frieuds He was an intimate friend of Griotto,
Avho has immortalized his youthful linea-
ments in the chapel of the Bargello, and
who is recorded to have drawn from
his friend's inspiration the allegories
of Virtue and Vice which fringe the

DANTE'S FRIENDS. 9

frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel at
Padua. Xor was he less sensible to
the delights of music. Milton had not
a keener ear for the loud uplifted angel
trumpets and the immortal harps of
golden wires of the cherubim and sera-
phim; and our English poet Avas proud
to compare his own friendship with
Henry Lawes with that l^etween Dante
and Casella, " met in the milder shades
of Purgatory." Most dear to him of
all were the companions Cino di Pistoia,
Lapo Grianni, Gruido Cavalcanti, and
others, similarly g^ifted and dowered

' I/O

with like tastes, who lived in the lively
streets of the city of the flowers, and
felt with him the first warm flush of
the coming renaissance. He has written
no sweeter or more melodious lines than

lo DANTE.

those in which he expresses the wish
that he, with Guido and Lapo, might
be wafted by enchantment over the sea
wheresoever thev mio'ht list, shielded
from fortune and evil times, and living
in such contentment that they should
wish to live always, and that the good
enchanter should bring Monna Yanna
and ]\Iouna Bice and that other lady
into their barque, where they should for
ever discourse of love and be for ever
happy. It is a wonderful thing (says
Leonardo Bruni) that, though he studied
without intermission, it would not have
appeared to any one that he studied,
from his joyous mien and youthful con-
versation. Like Milton, he was trained
in the strictest academical education
which the age afforded ; but Dante lived

POLITICAL LIFE. ii

under a warmer sun and brigliter skies,
and found in tlie rich variety and gaiety
of his early life a defence against the
withering misfortunes of his later years.
Milton felt too early the chill breath of
Puritanism, and the serious musing on
the experience of life, which saddened
the verse of both poets, deepened in
his case into grave and desponding
melancholy.

AVe must now consider the political Politic;

Lite.

circumstances in which lay the activity
of Dante's manhood. Trom 1115, the
year of the death of Matilda, countess
of Tuscany, to 1215, Florence enjoyed
a nearly uninterrupted peace. Attached
to the Guelf party, it remained undivided
against itself. But in 1215 a private
feud between the families of Buondel-

12 DANTE,

moDte and Ul^erti introduced into the
city the horrors of civil war. Villani
(lib. v., cap. 38) relates how Buondel-
monte de' Buondelmonti, a noble youth
of Florence, being engaged to marry a
lady of the house of Amidei, allied him-
self instead to a Donati, and how Buon-
delmonte was attacked and killed by
the Amidei and Uberti at the foot of
the Ponte Yecchio, close by the pilaster
which bears the image of Mars. " The
death of Messer Buondelmonte was the
occasion and beoinnino; of the accursed
parties of Gruelfs and Grhibellines in
Florence." Of the seventy-two families
then in Florence, thirty-nine became
Gruelf under the leadership of the Buon-
delmonte, and the rest Grhibelline under
the Uberti. The strife of parties was

GUELFS AND GHIBELLIXES. 13

for a while allayed by tlie war against
Pisa in 1222, and the constant struggles
against Siena; but, in 1248, Frederick
II. sent into the city his natural son,
Frederick, prince of Antioch, \yith 1,600
Grerman knio-hts. The Guelfs were
driyen away from the town, and took
refuge, part in Monteyarchi, part in
Capraia. The Ghibellines, masters of
Florence, behayed with great seyerity,
and destroyed the towers and palaces
of the Guelf nobles. At last the people
became impatient. They rose in rebel-
lion, deposed the podesta, elected in his
place a captain of the people, established
a more democratic constitution, and,
encouraged by the death of Frederick
in December, 1250, recalled the exiled
Guelfs. Manfred, the bastard son of

14 DANTE.

Frederick, pursued the policy of liis
father. He stimuh\ted the Ghibelhne
Uberti to rebel against their position of
subjection. A rising of the vanquished
party ^as put down by the people, in
July, 1258, the Grhibellines were expelled
from the town, and the towers of the
Uberti razed to the ground. The exiles
betook themselves to the friendly city
of Siena. Manfred sent them assis-
tance. The Florentines, after vainly
demanding their surrender, despatched
an army against them. On September
4, 1260, was fought the great battle
Montaperti, which dyed the Arbia red,
and in which the Guelfs were entirely
defeated. The hand which held the
banner of the republic was sundered by
the sword of a traitor. For the first

BATTLE OF MONTAPERTL 15

time in the history of Florence the
Caroccio Tvas taken. Florence lav at
the mercy of her enemies. A parlia-
ment was held at Empoli, in which the
deputies of Siena, Pisa, Arezzo, and
other Tuscan towns consulted on the
best means of securing their new war
power. They voted that the accursed
Guelf city should be blotted out. But
Farinata of the Uberti stood up in their
midst, bold and defiant as when he stood
erect among the sepulchres of hell, and
said that if, from the whole number of
the Florentines he alone should remain,
he would not suffer, whilst he could
yield a sword, that his country should
be destroyed, and that, if it were neces-
sary to die a thousand times for her, a
thousand times would he be ready to

i6 DANTE.

encounter death. Help came to the
Guelfs from an unexpected quarter.
Clement IV., elected pope in 1265,
offered the crown of Apulia and Sicily
to Charles of Anjou. The French
prince, passing rapidly through Lom-
bardy, Romagna, and the Marches,
reached Eome by way of Spoleto, was
crowned on January 6, 1266, and on
February 26, defeated and killed Man-
fred at Benevento. In such a storm of
conflict did Dante first see the light.
In 1267, the Gruelfs were recalled; but
instead of settling down in peace with
their opponents, they summoned Charles
of Anjou to vengeance, and the Ghi-
bellines were driven out. The meteor
passage of Conradin gave hope to the
imperial party, which was quenched

CONRADIN. 1 7

when the head of the fair-haired boy
fell on the scaffold at Xaples. Pope
after pope tried in vain to make peace.
Gregory X. placed the rebellious city
under an interdict ; Xicolas III. in
1280 patched up a hollow truce. In
1282, the constitution of Florence re-
ceived the final form which it retained
till the collapse of freedom. From the
three arii maggiori were chosen six
priors, in whose hands was placed the
government of the republic. They re-
mained in office for two months, and
during that time lived and shared a
common table in the Public Palace.
We shall see what influence this office
had upon the fate of Dante. The suc-
cess of the Sicilian Vespers, the vacancy
of the Holy See, the death of Charles

c

i8 DANTE.

of Anjou, roused again the courage of
the Ghibelhnes. Thej took possession
of Arezzo, and threatened to drive out
the Guelfs from Tuscany. The his-
torian Ammirato has left us a lively
account of the skirmishes against Arezzo
in the year 1288, a prelude to the great
battle of Campaldino in the following
summer. Then it was that Dante saw
" horsemen moving camp and commenc-
ing the assault, and holding muster, and
the march of foragers, the shock of
tournaments, and race of jousts, now
with trumpets and now with bells, with
drums and castle signals, with native
things and foreign " {Inf. xxii. 1, foil.).
On June 11, 1289, at Campaldino
near Poppi, in the Casentino, the Grhi-
bellmes were utterly defeated. They

CAMPALDINO. 19

never agfain recovered their hold on
Florence, but the violence of faction
survived under other names. Dante
fought with distinction at Campaldino,
was present shortly afterwards at the
battle of Caprona (Inf. xxi. 95, foil.),
and returned in September, 1289, to his
studies and his love. His peace was
of short duration. On June 9, 1290,
died Beatrice, whose mortal love had
guided him for thirteen years, and
whose immortal spirit purified his later
life, and revealed to him the mysteries
of Paradise.

Dante had first met Beatrice Porti- Beatrice.
nari at the house of her father Folco,
on May Day, 1274. In his otsti words,
" already nine times after my birth the
heaven of lis^ht had returned as it were

20 DANTE.

to the same point, ^'hen there appeared
to my eves the glorious lady of my
mind, who was by many called Beatrice,
who knew not what to call her. She
had already been so long in this life
that already in its time the starry
heaven had moved toward the east the
twelfth part of a degree, so that she
appeared to me about the beginning of
her ninth year, and I saw her about the
end of my ninth year. Her dress on
that day was of a most noble colour, a
subdued and goodly crimson, girdled
and adorned in such sort as best suited
with her tender age. At that moment
I saw most truly that the spirit of life
which hath its dwelling in the secretest
chamber of the heart began to tremble
so violently that the least pulses of my

BE A TRICE. 2 1

body shook therewith ; and in trembling
it said these words, ' Ecce deus fortior
me qui yeniens dominabitur mihi.' " In
the Vita Niiova is written the story of
his passion from its commencement to
within a year after the lady's death.
He saw Beatrice only once or twice, and
she probably knew little of him. She
married Simone de' Bardi. But the ^
worship of her loyer was stronger iovy
the remoteness of its object.-- The last
chapter of the Vita Nuova relates how,
after the lapse of a year, '"' it was giyen
me to behold a wonderful yision, where-
in I saw thino\s which determined me
that I would say nothing further of this
blessed one until such time as I could
discourse more worthily concerning her.
And to this end I labour all I can, as

22 DANTE.

she in trutli knoTveth. Therefore if it
be His pleasure through whom is the
life of all things that my life continue
with me a few years, it is my hope that
I shall vet write concerning^ her what
hath not before been written of any
woman. After the which may it seem
good unto Him who is the Master of
grace that my spirit should go hence to
behold the glory of its lady, to wit, of
that blessed Beatrice who now gloriously
gazes on the countenance of Him qui
est per omnia ssecula benedictus." In
the Coniito he resumes the story of his
life^' When I had lost the first delight
of mj soul (that is, Beatrice), I remained
so pierced with sadness that no com-
forts availed me anything; yet after
some time mv mind, desirous of health.

DAXTE-'S MARRIAGE. 23

sought to return to the method by
T\'hich other disconsolate ones had found
consolation, and I set myself to read
that little-known book of Boetius in
which he consoled himself when a
prisoner and an exile. And hearing
that Tully had written another work,
in which, treating of friendship, he had
given words of consolation to L^elius, I
set myself to read that also." He so''
far recovered from the shock of his
loss that in 1292 he married Gemma,
daughter of Manetto Donati, a con-
nection of the celebrated Corso Donati,
afterwards Dante's bitter foe. It is
possible that she is the lady mentioned
in the Yiia Nuova as sitting full of pity
at her window and comforting Dante
for his sorrow. Bv this wife lie had

24 DANTE.

seven children; and altliougli he never
mentions her in the Divina Commedia,
and although she did not accompany
him into exile, there is no reason to
suppose that she ^as other than a good
wife, or that the union was otherwise
than happy. Certain it is that he spares
the memory of Corso in his great poem,
and speaks kindly of his kinsmen Pic-
carda and Forese.

Dante now began to take an active
part in politics. He was inscribed in
the arte of the Medici and Speziali,
which made him eligible as one of the
six priori, to whom the government of
the city was entrusted in 1282. Ac-
cording to documents still existing in
the archives of Florence, he appeared in
public life on December 10, 1296, and

PUBLIC LIFE. 25

on March 14, 1297, wlien he offered to
tlie Council of the Centumviri a grant
of money to enable Charles, king of
Jerusalem and of Sicily, to subdue the
rebel Sicilians. In both cases he ^vas
unsuccessful. Filelfo says that Dante
served on fourteen embassies, a state-
ment not only unsupported by evidence,
but impossible in itself. An embassy,
Tvhich Filelfo does not mention, to the
town of San Gemignano, in 1299, does
not rest on very good evidence. The
one public employment, Tvhicli we know
Dante to have held, is of a nature which
we should not have expected. In April,
1301, a proposal was made to widen and
straighten the Yia di San Procolo from
the Boro-o della Pianofentina as far as
the Torrente Affrico. For this piu'pose

26 DANTE.

it was necessary to pull clown the lionse
of Ruba d'Allerone. This work was
entrusted to the care of Dante Alighieri,
a notary and secretary being attached to
him as an assistant. It is possible from
this circumstance that Dante had been
trained as an architect. From June 15
to August 15, 1300, Dante held the
office of prior, which, as he informs us,
was the source of all the miseries of his
life. The spirit of faction had again
broken out in Florence. The two riyal
families were the Cerchi and the Donati,
— the first of great wealth, but recent
origin ; the last of ancient ancestry, but
poor. A quarrel had arisen in Pistoia
between the two branches of the Can-
cellieri, — the Bianchi and Xeri, the
AVhites and the Blacks. The quarrel

CARDIXAL ACQUASPARTA. 27

spread to Florence, where the Donati
took the side of the Blacks, the Cerchi
of the Whites. Pope Boniface YIII.,
who was yery anxious to make Tuscany
a province of the Holy See, was asked
to mediate, and sent Cardinal Matteo
d'Acquasparta to maintain peace. He
arrived just as Dante entered upon his
office as prior. The cardinal eifected
nothing, and in December, 1300, the
heads of the different factions were
banished in different directions to a
distance from the capital. The Blacks
were sent to Citta della Pieve in the
Tuscan mountains ; the AVhites, amongst
whom was Dante's dearest friend Guido
Cavalcanti, to Serezzano, in the un-
healthy Maremma. After some time
both parties returned, Guido Cavalcanti

28 DANTE.

SO ill with fever that he shortly after-
wards died. The joiiniev of Charles of
Yalois to Rome gave the Blacks the
opportunity of gaining the upper hand.
At a meeting held in the church of
the Holy Trinity the AVhites were de-
nounced as Grhibellines, enemies of
France and the Pope, and the French
prince was invited to the town as peace-
maker, to defend the G-uelfs against
machinations. Charles of Yalois marched
from Pavia and took up his abode in
the Oltr' Arno, on All Saints' Da}^ 1301.
Five days afterwards the signory and
the protection of the city were com-
mitted to him. Corso Donati, who had
been banished a second time, returned
in force, and summoned the Blacks to
arms. The prisons were broken open,

DANTE'S EXILE. 29

the podesta driven from tlie town, the
Cerchi confined within their houses,
while a third of the city was destroyed
with fire and sword. By the help of
Charles the Blacks were victorious .
They appointed Cante de' Gabrielli of
G-ubbio as podesta, a man devoted to
their interests. More than 600 Whites
were condemned to exile and cast as
beggars upon the world. Their houses
were destroyed and their property con-
fiscated. On January 27, 1302, Dante,
with three others, was accused of mal-
versation and other crimes, and was
condemned to pay a fine of 5,000 small
florins. If the money was not paid
within three days, their property was
to be destroyed and laid waste ; if they
did pay the fine, they were to be exiled

30 DANTE.

for two years from Tuscany ; in any
case tliey were never again to liold office
in the republic. Forty daj's later, on
March 10 of tlie same j^ear, not having
obeyed the citation, Dante, with fourteen
others, was condemned to be burned
alive if they should come into the power
of the republic. Similar sentences were
passed on September 2, 1311, and on
November 6, 1315. It is clear from
Yillani that the charge of malversation
was of a political nature, and was
founded on Dante's conduct in his office
as prior. Dante received the news of
his banishment at Siena. Foreseeing the
fate which awaited him, he had left the
city and never saw its towers again. It
has been said that he was at this time
absent on an embassy to Pope Boniface

LIFE IX EXILE. 31

YIII., but it is doubtful whether the
embassy was ever sent, and it is certain
that Dante never formed part of it.

The exiles met first at Gargonza, a Exile,
castle between Siena and Arezzo, and
then at Arezzo itself. They joined
themselves to the Ghibellines, to which
party the podesta Uguccione della Fag-
giuola belonged. The Ghibellines, how-
ever, were divided amongst themselves,
and the Green Ghibellines were not
disposed to favour the cause of the
White Guelfs. They found a more
sympathetic defender in Scarpetta degli
Ordelaffi at Forli. From this place
Dante probably went to Bartolommeo
della Scala, lord of Yerona, where the
country of the great Lombard gave him
his first refuge and his first hospitable

32 DANTE.

reception. Can Grande, to whom lie
afterwards dedicated the Paradiso, was
then a boy. Bartolommeo died in 1304,
and it is possible that Dante may have
remained in Yerona till his death. In
September, 1303, to use the language
of Dante, the fleur-de-lis had entered
Anagni, and Christ had a second time
been buffeted in the person of his yicar.
Boniface YIII. did not survive the insult
long, but died in the following month.
He was succeeded by Benedict XI., who
did his best to give peace to his dis-
tracted country. Immediately after his
accession the Pope sent the Cardinal da
Prato to Florence, who arrived there
in March, 1304. The people received
him with enthusiasm; ambassadors came
to him from the Whites ; and he did his

CARDINAL DA PRATO. 33

best to reconcile tlie two parties. But
tlie Blacks resisted all his efforts. He
shook the dust from off his feet, and
departed, leaving the city under an
interdict. Foiled by the calumnies and
machinations of the one party, the car-
dinal gave his countenance to the other.
It happened that Corso Donati and the
heads of the Black party were absent at
Pistoia. Da Prato advised the AYhites
to attack Florence, deprived of its heads
and impaired by fire. An army was
collected of 16,000 foot and 9,000 horse.
Communications were opened with the
Ghibellines of Boloo-na and Komaorna.
But the forces of the exiles, badly led,
reached the gates of the city only to
find themselves unsupported from with-
in. They were driven to retreat, all

D

34 DANTE.

hope of return became impossible, and
Dante felt for tlie first time tlie full
bitterness of exile. It was after the
failure of this ill- conceived attempt that
Dante's wanderings really began. Filled
with contempt at the baseness and
incapacity of his fellow sufferers, he
wished that, disdaining the support of
their companionship, he had stood alone,
and made a party by himself. This,
indeed, we must consider Dante to have
done, if we would understand the real
GhM- i^ature of his Grhibellinism. Dante had
mism. \^Q^^ born and bred a Guelf, and it was
only under the pressure of inevitable
necessity that he and his friends allied
themselves with the other side. If we
rise beyond the limits of mere local
quarrels, we find in Italian history that

DANTE'S GHIBELLLWISM. 35

the Guelf party "u^as, generally speaking,
favourable to liberty. The municipal
privileges of the great Italian cities rose
under the protection of the popes, while
the emperors only crossed the Alps to
crush their ancient independence, and
depress them beneath the yoke of some
feudal representative. The horse of the
emperor Barbarossa trampled upon the
ashes of Milan, whereas the straw-built
fortress of the Lombard league bore the
name of Pope Alexander. Had it not
breathed the air of freedom, the life of
Florence could not have survived the
period of its infancy, stifled as it after-
wards was by the preponderance of the
Medici. Dante could not have been
indifferent or ungrateful to the cause
which had given to his beloved Italy all

36 DANTE.

tliat made it valuable to tlie world. But
lie saw tliat the conditions of tlie time
were altered, and that other dangers
menaced the welfare of his country.
There was no fear now that Florence,
Siena, Pisa, Arezzo should be razed to
the ground in order that the castle of
the lord might overlook the humble
cottages of his contented subjects ; but
there was danger lest Italy should be
torn in sunder by its own jealousies and
passions, and lest the fair domain
bounded by the sea and the Alps should
never properly assert the force of its
individuality, and should present a con-
temptible contrast to a united France
and a confederated Germany. Sick
with petty quarrels and dissensions,
Dante strained his eves towards the hills

THE VELTRO. 2>7

for the appearance of a deliverer, who
should hush the jar of discord, discipline
into effectiveness the luxuriant forces
of the peninsula, and, united in spiri-
tual harmony with the vicar of Christ,
show for the first time to the world an
example of a government where the
stronofest force and the hisfhest wisdom
were interpenetrated by all that God
had given to the world of piety and
justice. In this sense and in no other
was Dante a Ghibelline. The vision was
never realized — the hope was never
fulfilled. Xot till our own day has
Italy become united and the " grey-
hound of deliverance " has chased from
city to city the "wolf" of the papacy.
But is it possible to say that the dream
did not work its own realization, or to

38 DANTE.

deny that the high ideal of the poet,
after inspiring a long succession of
minds as lofty as his o^vn, has become
after five hundred years embodied in
the constitution of a state which ac-
knowledges no stronger bond of union
than a common worship of the exile's
indignant and impassioned verse ?

It is very difficult to determine with
exactness the order and the place of
Dante's wanderings. Many cities and
castles in Italy have claimed the honour
of giving him shelter, or of being for
a time the home of his inspired muse.
He certainly spent some time with
Count Guido Salvatico in the Casentino
near the sources of the Arno, probably
in the castle of Porciano, and with
Vguccione in the castle of Faggiuola in

WANDERINGS. 39

the mountains of Urbino. After tliis be
is said to have visited the University of
Bologna ; and in August, 1306, we find
him at Padua. Cardinal Xapoleon
Orsini, the legate of the French Pope
Clement Y., had put Bologna under a
ban, dissolved the university, and driven
the professors to the northern city. In
May or June, 1307, the same cardinal
collected the Whites at Arezzo and tried
to induce the Florentines to recall them.
The name of Dante is found attached
to a document signed by the AVhites in
the church of St. Gaudenzio in the Mu-
gello. This enterprise came to nothing.
Dante retired to the castle of Moroello
della Spina in the Lunigiana, where the
marble ridges of the Apennines descend
in precipitous slopes to the Gulf of

40 DAXTE.

Spezzia. From tliis time till tlie arrival
of tlie emperor Henry YII. in Italy,
October, 1310, all is uncertain. His old
enemy Corso Donati had at last united
himself Tritli IJo^uccione della Faofo^iuola,
the leader of the Grhibellines. Dante
thought it possible that this might lead
to his return. But in 1308 Corso was
declared a traitor, attacked in his house,
put to flight, and killed. Dante lost his
last hope. He left Tuscany and went
to Can G-rande della Scala at Yerona.
From this place we may believe that he
visited the University of Paris, studied
in the Rue Fouarre, became acquainted
with the Low Countries, and not im-
probably crossed the Channel and went
to Oxford, and saw where the heart of
Prince Harry was worshipped upon

HEXRV OF LUXEMBURG. 41

London Bridge. The election of Henry
of Luxemburg as emperor stirred again
his hopes of a deliverer. He left Paris
and returned hastily to Italy. At the
end of 1310, in a letter to the princes
and people of Italy, he proclaimed the
coming of the saviour ; at Milan he did
personal homage to his sovereign. The
Florentines made every preparation to
resist the emperor. Dante ^vi^ote from
the Casentino a letter dated March 31,
1311, in which he rebuked them for
their stubbornness and obstinacy. Henry
still lingered in Lombardy at the siege
of Cremona, when Dante, on April 16,
1311, in a celebrated epistle, upbraided
his delav, aro:ued that the crown of
Italy was to be won on the Arno rather
than on the Po, and urged the tarrying

42 DANTE.

emperor to liew tlie rebellious Floren-
tines like ^Agag in pieces before tlie
Lord. Henry was as deaf to this ex-
hortation as the Florentines themselves.
After reducing Lombardy he passed
from Genoa to Pisa, and on June 29,

1312, was crowned in Eome. Then at
length he moved towards Tuscany by
way of Umbria. Leaving Cortona and
Arezzo, he reached Florence on Septem-
ber 19. He did not dare to attack it,
but returned in November to Pisa. In
the summer of the following year he
prepared to invade the kingdom of
Xaples ; but in the neighbourhood of
Siena he caught a fever and died at the
monastery of Buonconvento, August 24,

1313. The hopes of Dante and his
party were buried in his grave.

OLD AGE. 43

After tlie death of tlie emperor Henry oid Age

^ and

(Bruni tells us) Dante passed the rest Death.
of his life in great poverty, sojourning
in various places throughout Lombardy,
Tuscany, and the Romagna, under the
protection of various lords, until at
length he retired to Ravenna, where he
ended his life. Yery little can be added
to this meagre story. There is reason
for supposing that he stayed at Grubbio
with Bosone dei Rafaelli, and tradition
assigns him a cell in the monastery of
St. Croce di Fonte Avellana in the same
district, situated on the slopes of Catria,
one of the highest of the Apennines.
After the death of Pope Clement Y. he
addressed a letter, dated July 14, 1314,
to the cardinals in conclave, urging them
to elect an Italian pope. About this

44 DANTE.

time lie came to Lucca, then lately
conquered by liis friend Uguccione,
completed the last cantos of the Purga-
tory, and became enamoured of the cour-
teous Grentucca, whose name had been
whispered to him by her countrymen on
the slopes of the Mountain of Purifi-
cation. In August, 1315, was fought the
battle of Monte Catini, a day of humi-
liation and mourning for the Gruelfs.
Uguccione made but little use of his
victory ; and the Florentines marked
their vengeance on his adviser by
condemning Dante yet once again to
death if he ever should come into their
power. In the beginning of the follow-
ing year Uguccione lost both his cities
of Pisa and Lucca. At this time Dante
was offered an opportunity of returning

. CA.y GRANDE BELLA SCALA. 45

to Florence. The conditions given to
the exiles were that they should pay a
fine and walk in the dress of humiliation
to the church of St. John, and there
do penance for their offences. Dante
refused to tolerate this shame ; and the
letter is still extant in which he declines
to enter Florence except with honour,
secure that the means of life will not
fail him, and that in any corner of the
world he will be able to u:aze at the sun
and the stars, and meditate on the sweet-
est truths of philosophy. He preferred
to take refuge with his most illustrious
protector. Can Grande della Scala of
Yerona, then a young man of twenty-
five, rich, liberal, and the favoured head
of the Ghibelline party. His name has
been immortalized by an eloquent pane-

46 DANTE.

gyric in the seventeenth canto of the
Faradiso. AYhilst at the court of
Yerona he is said to have maintained
in the neighbouring city of Mantua the
philosophical thesis De Aqua et Terra,
which is included in his minor works.
The last years of his life were spent at
Ravenna, under the protection of Guido
da Polenta. In his ser^^ce Dante
undertook an embassy to the Venetians.
He failed in the object of his mission,
and, returning disheartened and broken
in spirit through the unhealthy lagoons,
caught a fever and died in Ravenna,
September 14, 1321. His bones still
repose there. His doom of exile has
been reversed by the Union of Italy,
which has made the city of his birth
and the various cities of his wander-

DEA TH. 47

ings component members of a common
country. His son Pietro, who Tvrote a
commentary on tlie Dh'lna Gommedla,
settled as judge in Yerona. His
dauofliter Beatrice lived as a nun in
Ravenna. His direct line became
extinct in 1500 ; but the blood still
runs in the veins of the Marchesi
Sereo^o Alio-hieri, a noble family of the
city of the Scaligers. "^

Dante may be said to have cone en- ^^^^^^'
trated in himself the spirit of the ^"^^l
Middle Age. AVhatever there was of
piety, of philosophy, of poetry, of love
of nature, and of love of knowledge in
those times is drawn to a focus in his
writino^s. He is the first o^reat name
in literature after the night of the Dark
Ages. The Italian language in all its

48 DANTE.

purity and sweetness, in its aptitude for
the tenderness of love and tlie violence
of passion or the clearness of philo-
sophical argument, sprang fully grown
and fully armed from his brain. The
Viia yuova is still the best introduction
to the study of the Tuscan tongue ; the
astronomy and science of the Divine
Comedy are obscure only in a transla-
tion. Dante's reputation has passed
through many yicissitudes, and much
trouble has been spent by critics in
comparing him with other poets of
established fame. Eead and com-
mented upon in the Italian universities
in the generation immediately succeed-
ing his death, his name became obscured
as the sun of the renaissance rose higher
towards its meridian. In the seventeenth

DANTE'S GENIUS. 49

century he was less read tlian Petrarch,
Tasso, or Ariosto ; in the eighteenth he
Tras almost nniversally neglected. His
fame is now Mly vindicated. Transla-
tions and commentaries issue from every
press in Europe and America. Dante
societies are formed to investigate the
difficulties of his works. He occupies in
the lecture-rooms of regenerated Italy a
■place by the side of those great masters
whose humble disciple he avowed himself
to be. The Divine Comedy is indeed as
true an epic as the ^neid, and Dante is
as real a classic as Yergil. His metre is
as pliable and flexible to every mood of
emotion, his diction as plaintive and as
sonorous. Like him he can immortalize,
by a simple expression, a person, a place,
or a phase of nature. Dante is even

£

so DANTE.

truer in description than Yergil, whether
he paints the snow falling in the Alps,
or the homeward flight of birds, or the
swelling of an angry torrent. But under
this georgeous pageantry of poetry there
lies a unity of a conception, a power
of philosophic grasp, an earnestness of
religion, which to the Roman poet were
entirely unknown. Still more striking
is the similarity between Dante and
Milton. This may be said to lie rather
in the kindred nature of their subjects,
and in the parallel development of
their minds, than in any mere external
resemblance. In both the man was
greater than the poet, the souls of both
were "like a star and dwelt apart."
Both were academically trained in the
deepest studies of their age ; the labour

DANTE AXD MILTOX. 51

which made Dante lean made Milton
blind. The '*' Doricke sweetnesse " of
the English poet is not absent from the
tender pages of the Vita Xicova. The
middle life of each was spent in active
controversy ; each lent his services to
the state ; each felt the quarrels of his
age to be the '•' business of posterity,"
and left his warnings to ring in the ears
of a later time. The lives of both were
failures. '*' On evil davs thoug^h fallen,
and evil tongues," they gathered the
concentrated experience of their lives
into one immortal work, the quint-
essence of their hopes, their knowledge,
and their sufferings. But Dante is
somethino' more than this. Milton's
voice is grown faint to us — we have
passed into other modes of expression

52 DANTE.

and of thouglit. But if we liad to
select two names in literature who are
still exercising tlieir full influence on
mankind, and whose teaching is still
developing new sides to the coming
generations, we should choose the names
of Dante and Goethe. Goethe preached
a new gospel to the world, the pagan
virtue of self- culture, a sympathy which
almost passed into indifference. There
is no department of modern literature
or thought which does not bear upon it
the traces of the sage of Weimar. But
if we rebel against this teaching, and
yearn once more for the ardom^ of belief,
the fervour of self-sacrifice, the scorn
of scorn and the hate of hate which is
the meed of the coward and the traitor,
where shall we find them but in the

DANTE AND GOETHE. 53

pages of the Florentine ? The religion
of the future, if it be founded on faith,
will demand that faith be reconciled
with all that the mind can apprehend of
knowledge or the heart experience of
emotion. The saint of those days will
be trained, not so much on ascetic
counsels of Imitation, or in Thoughts
which base man's greatness on the
consciousness of his fall, as on the
verse of the poet, theologian, and
philosopher, who stands with equal
right in the conclave of the doctors and
on the slopes of Parnassus, and in whom
the ardour of studj is one with the love
of Beatrice, and both are made sub-
servient to lift the soul from the abyss
of hell, along the terraces of Purgatory,
to the spheres of Paradise, till it gazes

54 DANTE.

on the ineffable revelation of the exis-
tence of God Himself, which can only
be apprehended by the eye of faith.

It now only remains to give some
account of Dante's works. There is
no doubt that the first of his literary
compositions were lyrical poems. The
earliest sonnets in the Yita Nuova^ that
of the eaten hearts, was composed at
the age of eighteen. His lyrics may
be divided into three periods, the first
ending at 1291, the second at 1313, and
the third at 1321. Many of the poems
he wrote have not come down to us,
whereas many of those which are attri-
buted to him are not genuine. Some
of these, which have been preserved
under the name of Dante, belong to
Dante da Maiano, a poet of a harsher

LYRICAL POEMS. 55

style ; others which bear the name of
Aldighiero are referable to Dante's sons,
Jacopo or Pietro, or to his grandsons;
others may be ascribed to Dante's con-
temporaries and predecessors, Cino da
Pistoia, and others. Those which are
genuine secure Dante a place among
lyrical poets scarcely if at all inferior
to that of Petrarch. Fraticelli, whose
edition is the best, accepts as undoubt-
edly genuine forty-four sonnets, ten
hall ate, twenty canzoni, and three sestine ;
whereas Giuliani only allows him thirty-
seven sonnets, five haJJate, twenty can-
zone, and one single sestina. The Vita
ynova or Young Life of Dante contains
the history of the poet's love for Bea-
trice. Like the In Memoriam of Tenny-
son, it follows all the varying phases of

S6 DANTE.

a deep and overmastering passion from
its commencement to its close. He
describes lio^' he met Beatrice as a
child, himself a child, how he had often
sought her glance, how she once greeted
him in the street, how he feigned a
false love to hide his true love, how he
fell ill and saw in a dream the death
and transfiguration of his beloved, how
she died, and how his health failed from
sorrow, how the tender compassion of
another lady nearly won his heart from
its first a:ffection, how Beatrice appeared
to him in a vision and reclaimed his
heart, and how at last he saw a vision
which induced him to devote himself
to study, that he might be more fit to
glorify her who gazes on the Face of
God for ever. This simple story is

" VITA NUOVA:-' S7

interspersed ^itli sonnetti, hallate, and
canzoni, cliieflv "svritten at the time to
emphasize some mood of his changing
passion. After each of these in nearly
every case follows an explanation in
prose, which is intended to make the
thought and argument intelligible to
those to whom the language of poetry
was not familiar. This was probably
written between 1292 and 1295. The
first edition is that of Sermantelli at
Florence in 1516. The best edition is
that of AYitte, published by Brockhaus
at Leipsic in 1876.

The Convito or Banqiiet is the work Cunvit
of Dante's manhood, as the Vita Niiova
is the work of his youth. It consists,
in the form in which it has come down
to us, of an introduction and three

58 DANTE.

treatises, each forming an elaborate
commentary on a long canzone. It was
intended, if completed, to have com-
prised commentaries on eleven more
canzoni, making fourteen in all, and in
this shape would have formed a tesoro
or handbook of universal knowledge
such as Brunetti Latini and others
have left to us. It is perhaps the least
known of Dante's Italian works ; but
crabbed and unattractive as it is in
many parts, it is well worth reading,
and contains many passages of great
beauty and elevation. Indeed, a know-
ledge of it is indispensable to the full
understanding of the Divina Commedia.
The Conrito or Coiivivio, as perhaps it
had better be called, was written be-
tween April, 1307, and May, 1309. It

" COXVITOy 59

was probably never completed because,
as we learn from tlie Divine Comedy,
Dante had found reason to doubt the
truth of much of the traditional scientific
knowledge of his time. The present
text is very corrupt. The Cunvito was
first printed in Florence by Buonacini
in 1490. The best editions of the
Convito are those of Fraticelli and
Giuliani.

Dante mentions in the Convito his ■^'^ .^'^^-
intention of writins; a treatise di vol- f.y''''^'
gare eloquenzia. The present treatise
is noticed by Yillani, Boccaccio, and
Bruni. Its object was, first, to establish
the Italian language as a literary tongue,
and to distinguish between the noble
speech which might become the property
of the whole nation, at once a bond of

6o DANTE.

internal unity and a line of demarcation
against external nations ; and, secondly,
to lay down rules for poetical composi-
tion in tlie language so established. The
work was probably intended to be com-
pleted in four books, perhaps in five,
but only two are extant, and these not
complete. The work breaks off in the
middle of a sentence. The first of these
books deals with the various forms of
the Italian language, the second with
the style and with the composition of
the canzone. The work was not begun
till after 1809. There are three ancient
manuscripts of the treatise, the Trivul-
ziano of the fourteenth century; the
MS. of G-renoble, which dates from the
end of the fourteenth century, or a little
later; and the Vatican manuscript, which

'' DE VULGARI ELOQUEXTIAP 6i

is a copy made in tlie beginning of the
sixteenth centnry of a manuscript in
the library of Lorenzo da Medici, duke
of Urbino. It was first printed in the
Itahan version of Trissino at Yicenza
in 1529. The original Latin was first
published by Corbinelli at Paris in 1577.
By far the best account of the work is
that of Fr. d'Ovidio, included in his
Sagrji Critici, Xaples, 1878.

The Latin treatise Le Monarckia, in ^f

Alon-

three books, contains the creed of Dante's «''^'''^-
Ghibellmism. The authenticity of the
work is undoubted. It is mentioned by
Yillani, Boccaccio, and Bruni as Dante's
work. In this treatise Dante propounds
the theory that the supremacy of the
emperor is derived from the supremacy
of the Eoman people over the world,

62 DANTE.

which was given to them directly from
God. As the emperor is intended to
insure their earthly happiness, so does
their spiritual welfare depend upon the
pope, to whom the emperor is to do
honour as to the firstborn of the Father.
The first book treats of the necessity of
monarchy ; in the second, he shows how
the Roman people acquires of right
the office of monarchy or of empire ; in
the third, how the office of the monarch
or the emperor depends immediately
upon Grod, and not upon the pope. He
argues that the ineffable providence of
Grod has proposed two ends to man, one
the happiness of this life, the other the
happiness of life eternal; each of these
ends requires different means. At the
first we arrive by philosophical dis-

''DE MOXARCHIAJ' 63

cipline; at the second by moral and
intellectnal virtues, bv tlie discipline of
Faith, Hope, and Charity. The duty
of controlling one of these means belongs
to the emperor, of controlling the other
to the pope. But the emperor must be
inspired by Him Tvho sees all the dis-
position of the heavens. Grod above
elects, God above confirms, there being
no one superior to Him. Those who
are called electors are not really so, but
merely exponents of the Divine provi-
dence. Thus the authority of the
temporal monarch descends to him
directly and immediately from the foun-
tain of universal authority. Yet the
Eoman emperor ought to treat the
pontiff Tvith the respect which an eldest
son pays to his father, both of them

64 DANTE.

being subject to the autlioritj of God.
This early statement of the Divine right
of kinoes derived strens^th and confirma-
tion after the Eeformation, when the
popes began to strain their power over
earthly sovereigns. The usual date
assigned to this work is the time of the
descent of Henry YII. into Italy, that
is, between 1310 and 1313. At the
same time many would place it before
Dante's exile. Scartazzini, after an
exhaustive examination of the question,
comes to the conclusion that it is impos-
sible to decide even approximately at
what time the book was written.
Eclogues. Boccaccio mcntious in his Life of
Dante that he wi^ote two eclogues in
Latin in answer to Johannes de Yirgilio,
who invited him to come from Ravenna

ECLOGUES. 6s

to Bologna and compose a great Tvork
in tlie Latin language. The most in-
teresting passage in this work is that
in the first poem, where he expresses
the hope that when he has finished the
three parts of his great poem, his grey
hairs mav be crowned with laurel on
the banks of the Arno. Although the
Latin of these poems is superior to that
of his prose works, we may feel thankful
that Dante composed the great work of
his life in his own vernacular.

Yillani informs us that Dante, amongst 'Letters.
others, wrote three noble letters. One
he sent to the government of Florence,
lamenting that he had been exiled with-
out blame; another he wrote to the
emperor Henry YIL, when he was at
the siege of Brescia, reproving him for

66 DANTE.

his sloth, and prophesying the future ;
the third to the ItaHan cardinals, when
the papal see was vacant, after the
death of Clement, that they might agree
in electing an Italian pope. These three
letters remain to us ; but where are the
others of which Yillani speaks. Is it
also certain that the three we possess
were really those written by Dante ?
At the end of the last century the only
letters of Dante then known were a long
letter in Latin, addressed to Can G-rande
della Scala, containing directions for
interpreting the Divina Gommedia, with
especial reference to the Paradiso, the
genuineness of which, although usually
admitted, is not absolutely certain ; and
the Italian version of the letters to the
princes and people of Italy and to Henry

LETTERS. 67

VII. Dionisi publisliecl in 1810 a letter
of Dante to a Florentine friend. In
1827 AYitte published the original Latin
of tlie letter to Henrj YII. and to the
Italian cardinals, and the pretended
letter of Dante to Cino da Pistoia.
In 1837 Theodor Heyse discovered in
the Vatican Library a codex containing
the ten eclogues of Petrarch, the treatise
Be Monar cilia, and nine Latin letters,
some of which bore the name of Dante.
They were as foUows : (1) to Henry
VII. ; (2) to the Florentines ; (3, 4, and
5) to Margaret of Brabant ; (6) to the
grandsons of Alessandro da Eomena; (7)
to Moroello Malaspina ; (8) to Cardinal
da Prato; (9) to the princes and lords
of Italy. Of these numbers 3, 4, and
5 are undoubtedly spurious; 6, 7, and

68 DA ATE.

8 are probably not genuine; 1 is cer-
tainly authentic ; 2 and 9 are possibly so.
The letter to a Florentine friend with
regard to Dante's return from exile is
generally regarded as genuine; but its
authenticity is doubted by Scartazzini.
DeAqua ^ ij^tle book of twentv-three pas-es

it Ttrra. «^ r &

was published at Venice in 1508 by
Manfredo da Monteferrato with the title
"Questio florentula ac perutilis de duo-
l)us elementis Aquce et Terree tractans
nuper reperta, quEe olim Mantuas auspi-
cata Veronal vero disputata et devisa,
ac manu propria scripta a Dante floren-
tino poeta clarissimo. Quge diligenter
et accurate correcta fuit per reveren-
dum mao'istrum Joannem Benedictum
Moncettum da Castilione Arretino,
Eegentem Patavinum, ordini Eremi-

''DE AQUA ET TERRA:' 69

tariim Divi Augustini, sacrseque theo-
logige doctorem excellentissimum."
Moncetti dedicated tlie book to Cardinal
Ippolito of Este in a preface which
tells us that the original treatise of
Dante was corrected, polished, and com-
pleted before being published. It is
not therefore pretended that the work
as we have it is written by Dante.
The original manuscript is not forth-
coming, and the work is not mentioned
by any of Dante's biographers, even
by Filelfo. A distinguished geologist
Stoppani wrote an essay to show how
Dante in this work anticipated a
number of modern discoveries. (1) The
effect of the moon on the tides. (2)
The equality of the sea level. (3) The
centripetal force of gravity. (4) The

70 DANTE.

sphericity of tlie earth. (5) The fact
that tracts of dry land are merely
excrescences of the earth's surface. (6)
The predominance of continents in the
Northern hemisphere. (7) The univer-
sality of the force of attraction. (8) The
elasticity of vapour as a motive power.
(9) The upheaval of continents. These
statements prove too much, for the above-
mentioned scientific facts, although un-
known in the time of Dante, had been
discovered before the publication of
Moncetti. There can be no doubt there-
fore that the treatise is spurious. Bruni
informs us that Dante wrote a beauti-
ful hand, and that the form of his letters
was long and thin.
mvxna The first idea of the Commedia in

Com-

media. Daute's mind dates from his early years,

''DIVINA COMMEDIAr 71

when liis Beatrice was still living. ATe
see this from the canzone in § 19 of
the Y'da Nuova^ where the words "e
die clira nell' Inferno a malnati : lo
vidi la speranza de' beati " express an
intention of writing^ a work which shall
comprise a journey through Hell, if
not through Paradise. In the last
paragraph of the Vita Xuova he ex-
presses his determination not to speak
any more of Beatrice until he can treat
of her more worthily, and for that
purpose he deyotes himself to intense
study. In the Convito he says very
little alDOut her ; there can be no doubt,
therefore, that the Comrnedia is the
work promised in the last words of
the Vita Nuova. AYe haye reason for
inferring that canto xix. of the Inferno

72 DANTE.

was not written until after tlie death of
Clement Y., wliicli happened on April
20, 1314, and that the last cantos of
the Paradiso were only completed just
before the poet's death. AYe may
therefore ^^lace the composition of the
poem in the years which elapsed be-
tween the death of Henry YII. and the
death of Dante himself, that is, between
1313 and 1321. The letter to Frate
Ilario, which would imply that the poem
was almost finished in 1306, is now con-
sidered as spurious. It is of course
quite possible, as in Goethe's Faust,
that portions of the jDoem may have
been composed before the poet set
himself to its systematic creation. The
title given to his own poem by Dante is
Cornmedla; the epithet Dlviua appears

SYMMETRY OF THE POEM. -Ji

for tlie first time on the title-page of
the edition of Dolce, published at Venice
by Giolito in 1555, Landino having
called Dante himself Dlvino in the
Florentine edition of 1481. Xothing is
more remarkable in the poem than the
symmetry of its construction. Its archi-
tecture is, so to speak, dominated by
the perfect number ten, and by the two
next most important numbers, three and
nine. The cantiche, or large divisions,
are three in number; the terza rima in
which the poem is written is modelled
on the number three. If we consider
the first canto of the Inferno as a
general introduction, there remain
thirty-three cantos for each cantica,
the three elevated to the dignity of a
perfect number and multiplied by itself.

74 DANTE.

The wliole poem consists of a Imndred
cantos, the perfect number multiplied
by itself. Eacli of the three king-
doms has nine regions : that is, the
Inferno has nine circles ; Purgatory,
an ante-Purgatory, seven circles, and
the earthly Paradise ; Paradise has nine
heavens. But the influence of the
perfect number is dominant through-
out. The nine circles of Hell are pre-
ceded by a vestibule, ante-Purgatory is
divided into three terraces. Purgatory,
therefore, contains in all ten circles.
Also there are three wild beasts which
oppose Dante in his ascent of the
mountain ; three blessed ladies who
take care of him in the court of
heaven ; three guides — Yergil, Beatrice,
and St. Bernard. Lucifer has three

SCULPTURESnUE IN EORM. 75

faces ; three flames have tlieir hearts
on fire ; there are three infernal furies
stained with blood. It is also worthy
of remark that the Commedia consists
of 14,233 lines, which, if equally divided
between the three canticlie, would give
4,744 for each. But the Inferno has only
4,720, the Furgatorio 4,755, and i\\ePara-
diso 4,758 lines. Indeed Dante tells us
that the reason why he does not tell us
any more about Purgatory is that all
the leaves assigned to the second cantica
are full. There can be no stronger
proof of the sculpturesque accuracy with
which the whole work was composed.
For the understanding of the Divine
poem, it is necessary to give some
account of the universe as Dante con-
ceived it. As Lucifer fell from Heaven,

76 DANTE.

the earth and the waters fled with horror
at his approach. The earth as it
shrank left a deep conical cavity, the
pit of Hell ; the waters collected on the
other side of the earth, surrounding
the island-mountain of Purgatory,
formed by the Earth driven out bj
the fall of Lucifer. The pit of Hell
lies just under Jerusalem; and the
mountain of Purgatory, with the garden
of the earthly Paradise at its summit,
forms the antipodes of the Holy City.
Lucifer lies entombed in the very centre
of the Earth. The spheres of Paradise
are inclosed in each other like the coats
of an onion, surrounding the Earth,
which is in their centre. They are ten
in number ; the heavens respectively
of the Moon, of Mercury, of Yenus,

DAXTE'S UNIVERSE. 77

of the Sun, of Mars, of Jupiter, of
Saturn, of tlie Fixed Stars. The ninth
is the CrystalKne or transparent heaven,
the existence of which is only apparent
by the movement "which it receives.
Outside all these is the Empyrean,
the home of God Himself and of the
blessed spirits who are admitted to it.
As the poet rises from sphere to sphere
the forms of the blessed appear to him
in each according to their several
qualities, although the home of all of
them is in the highest.

Let us briefly trace the passage of the ^eii.
poet through these three kingdoms. At
the opening of the poem Dante awakes
from slumber, and finds that he has lost
his way in a dark and tangled wood.
When he comes out of it, he begins to

78 DANTE.

ascend a hill, illuminated by the rays of

the sun; but he is prevented by three
wild beasts — a panther, a lion, and a
wolf. The poet Yergil now appears to
him, and offers to guide him through
Hell and Purgatory, as far as the
earthly Paradise. Dante doubts whether
he is fit to undertake such a journey,
but Yergil comforts him, and announces
to him that the Holy Virgin, Saint
Lucy, and Beatrice have care of him,
and that Beatrice has sent Yergil to
conduct him. Dante at last consents.
Thus is the first day spent — Palm
Sunday of the year 1300. The Gate
of Hell now appears before them, with
its terrible inscription. They enter,
and hear a confused sound of sighs,
groans, and beatings of hands. They

HELL. 19

first meet the cowards, who did neither
good nor harm in hfe, tormented by
insects, and running after a banner.
The J arrive at the shore of Acheron.
Charon refuses to ferry across a hyino;
souL He is transported in a mysterious
manner whilst asleep, and, waking up,
finds himself in Limbo, where are those
who died without baptism and without
faith, — the heroes, the philosophers, and
the great poets of antiquity. From
this point they descend into the dark-
ness. At the entrance of the second
circle stands Minos, who declares the
sentence of the damned by the lashing
of his tail around his body. In this
circle are the self-indulgent, who are
borne along by a ceaseless wind.
Among tbem is Francesca da Eimini,

8o DANTE.

who tells tlie sad story of lier love.
Dante falls into a swoon for pit}' of her,
and, waking up, finds himself in the third
circle, — that of the gluttons, guarded by
the dread Cerberus. Here they meet
Ciacco, who predicts to Dante his exile
from his country. Pluto, guardian of
the circle of the misers and the spend-
thrifts, howls in an awful manner, and
pronounces unintelligible sounds. Xext
is the marshy Styx, where the travellers
see the punishment of the wrathful.
The gates of the city of Dis are guarded
by demons and fiends, who try to pre-
vent their passage. They are admitted
by the aid of a messenger from Heaven.
Inside they find themselves in a vast
cemetery. Heresiarchs and heretics lie
in sepulchres of red-hot iron ; among

HERESIARCHS AXD TVRAXTS. 8i

tliem the emperor Frederick II., a pope,
a cardinal, Farinata degli Uberti, tvIio
prevented the destruction of Florence,
and Cavalcante Cavalcanti, who laments
the death of his son Guido. After this,
by a precipitous route, they reach the
circle of the violent, guarded by the
Minotaur s. Tyrants and homicides,
among them Ezzelino, Obizzo da Este,
and Guy de Montfort, are plunged in
a river of boilino* blood. The trees of
a fetid wood, in which Harpies nestle,
are found to be the bodies of suicides.
Here is the unhappy Pier della Yigne.
In the third division of the seventh
circle, Capaneus lies on his back under
a rain of fire, and still hurls defiance at
Jupiter. They now arrive at Phlege-
thon, and meet those guilty of the sin

G

82 DANTE.

of Sodom, — among tliem clerics and men
of letters, including Brunetto Latini,
the preceptor of the poet. At the point
where Phlegethon falls into a great
abyss, Dante unties a mystic cord
which he had round his wrist, and
letting it down, Yergil gives a sign to
Greryon, a strange monster, who comes
up to take the two poets on his back,
and to convey them to the eighth circle,
called Malebolge, because it is divided
into ten pits or holgie. In these pits
seducers are scourged by devils ; flat-
terers are smothered in dung; simo-
niacs are fixed head downwards in a
hole, while their feet are burnt with
flame. Here Pope Nicholas III. awaits
his successors Boniface YIII. and
Clement Y. In the fourth pit sooth-

MALEBOLGE. 83

sajers liave tlieir faces turned round to
their backs ; in tlie fifth, fraudulent mer-
chants stand in a lake of boiling jjitch.
In the sixth, hypocrites are condemned
to Tvear a heavy mantle of gilded lead.
In the ninth pit we find Mahomet split
into two from his chin to his trunk ;
Bertram de Born carrying his head in
his hands ; Geri del Bello, Dante's kins-
man, his violent death not yet avenged.
The ninth circle is represented as a
huge well, from which the forms of
giants rise like towers. Ant^us takes
the two poets in the jDalms of his hands
and places them in the bottom. Here
the betrayers of their relations, of their
country, of their friends, and of huma-
nity, are fixed in a frozen lake, some
at a greater, some at a lesser depth,

84 DAXTE.

according to tlie enormity of tlieir
offence. Here lies tlie nnliappy Ugo-
lino della Glieradesca, whose piteous
story lias resounded tlirougli the world.
In the very centre of the earth is found
the monstrous body of Lucifer, whose
triple mouth holds the three typical
traitors of the world — Judas, who be-
trayed Christ; Brutus and Cassius, who
betrayed Csesar. Dante now ties him-
self to Yergil's neck, and they climb
together down the hairy sides of Luci-
fer, till they reach the central point of
the universe. They then issue through
the rent made by the fall of the rebel
angel, and see the stars once more.
Their j^^ssage through the circles of
Hell has occupied two days — Monday
and Tuesday in Holy Week.

PURGATORY. 85

The travellers now arrived at the moun- Purgatory,
tain of purification. Thej are welcomed
bj the Four Stars of the Southern Cross,
never seen before save by first-created
man. Cato stands as Q-aardian of Pur-
gatory. Dante, by the command of
Cato, first purifies himself from the
filth of Hell, and then proceeds to
ascend the holy mountain. In Hell the
descent had become more difficult as
they went lower down ; in Purgatory
the mountain becomes gradually more
easy to scale. AVhilst the poets are
thus standing on the shore, a boat
approaches, impelled by the outspread
wings of an angel at the stern, full
of spirits, who come to be purified.
Among them is the poet Casella, who
addresses Dante in one of his own

86 DANTE.

poems. In the ante-Purgatory they
meet king Manfred, who relates the
tragic story of his death; the slothful
Belacqua; Buonconte da Montefeltro;
and Pia de' Tolomei, the heroine of
painters and musicians ; Sordello, the
poet of Mantua, standing like a couch-
ing lion; and others who had deferred
repentance till the day of their death.
At night-fall the poet sleeps ; St. Lucy
raises him, still in slumber, and places
him at the gate of St. Peter. Here an
angel carves on his forehead seven P's
with the point of his sword. He then
opens the gate, and the two poets enter
upon the true Purgatory. The mountain
is surrounded by concentric terraces.
On the first are the proud, weighed down
by enormous weights. Among them are

THE TERRACES. 87

Oderisi da Gubbio, tlie illuminator of
manuscripts, and the liauglity Proven-
zan Salvani. On the second terrace
are the victims of envy, seated and
clothed in dresses of hair-cloth, their
eyes sealed by a thread of steel. Secret
voices chant examples of humility, and
of envy punished. On the third terrace
stand the wrathful enveloped in a thick
and pungent smoke. They see in
visions examples of holy love and
disastrous anger. The indifferent, of
the fom^th terrace, run in great haste.
The misers of the fifth lie grovelling
on the ground. Among them are Pope
Hadrian Y., Hugh Capet, Charles of
Yalois, and Philip le Bel. An earth-
quake announces that a soul has com-
pleted its term of purification. When

88 DANTE.

the soul appears, it is found to be Sta-
tius, wlio, from that moment, accom-
panies the poets. At the entrance to
the sixth terrace is seen a mystic tree,
and voices are heard uttering examples
of temperance. Here are the gluttons,
now horribly lean, desiring the food and
drink which are denied to them. The
last terrace contains the luxurious, or
self-indulgent, who wander about sing-
ing in a sea of fire. Among them are
Guido Guinicelli and Arnaldo Daniello.
The poets are also compelled to pass
through the fire. Dante hesitates ; but
Yergil reassures him, and at the sound
of the name of Beatrice he throws him-
self into the flame, crosses it, and finds
that the seven P's on his brow are
obliterated. Yereil declares that he can

EARTHLY PARADISE. 89

no longer act as guide, and suddenly
disappears. Dante is now on tlie verge
of tlie terrestrial Paradise. He sees
Matilda on the other side of a stream,
sinofino: and oratheringf flowers. Here a
magnificent vision meets his gaze, which
represents the fortune of the Church,
from its foundation to the transference
of the papal see to Avignon. Beatrice
now appears to him. He drinks of the
waters of Lethe and of Eunoe, and
feels himself purified, and ready to
mount upwards to the stars.

Beatrice fixes her eyes upon the sun, Paradise.
Dante his eyes on those of Beatrice.
They pass through the sphere of fire
and reach that of the moon. Here
appear to them the spirits who have
proved false to their vows. Then, quick

90 DANTE.

as lightning, they ascend to the heaven
of Mercury ; at each ascent Beatrice,
already divinely fair, becomes more
beautiful, more brilliant, more smiling.
In Mercury are seen the souls of those
who worked hard for the desire of
honour. The emperor Justinian is
taken as their type. In the heaven of
Yenus Chailes Martel shows himself
among the spirits of love. In the
heaven of the Smi the spirits of wisdom
are manifest, seen not by their colour,
but by their more brilliant light.
Thomas Aquinas relates the life of St.
Francis of Assisi, Bonaventura that of
St. Dominic. In Mars the militant
spirits show themselves in the form of
a dazzling cross. Here Cacciaguida,
Dante's ancestor, speaks to the poet

THE SPHERES. 91

of himself and his exploits, and an-
nounces the future glory of the poet,
his descendant. In Jupiter the spirits
who loved justice upon earth arrange
themselves in the form of an eagle,
the imperial ensign. The heaven of
Saturn is assisfned to the contem-
plative spirits, and Jacob's ladder
appears leading mysteriously to heaven.
Among them are Pier Damiano and St.
Benedict. After this Dante rises to the
heaven of the fixed stars in the con-
stellation of the Twins, under which he
was born. Strengthened by Beatrice, he
turns his eyes to the universe which he
has left beneath him, and especially to
the tiny earth of which we are so proud.
The triumph of Christ is described and
the coronation of the Yirofin. St. Peter

92 DANTE.

examines Dante in faitli, St. James in
hope, and St. John in love, while the
whole of Paradise resounds with a
hvmn of glory to the Holj Trinity.
Dante and Beatrice now ascend to the
crystalline heaven or the Primum Mobile.
Dante sees the nine choirs of angels
which circle in inverse order round a
radiant point of light, the choir nearest
to the point being the quickest, that
most distant from it the slowest. Then
follows the empyrean, in which there is
neither time nor motion, but only light,
love, and joy. In the heavenly Rose
Dante sees the seat destined for Henry
YII. Beatrice leaves her faithful lover
and returns to her own seat in the third
circle. St. Bernard takes her place, and
guides Dante to the ultimate end of

THE BEATIFIC VISIOX. 93

man, — that is, tlie perfect happiness

Tvliich consists in the vision of the

divinity. He shows him Mary the Queen

of Heaven, together with Gabriel,

Adam, Moses, Peter, John, and other

heroes of the faith. After a snbhme

prayer, Dante is permitted to gaze on

the sublime mysteries of salvation, the

Trinity, and the union of the Divine

and human natures in Christ.

Dante died September 14, 1321, and Biblio-
graphy.

the first finished edition of the Divine
Comedy was published in 1472. There-
fore for a hundred and fifty years this
immortal work was made known by
means of manuscripts, of which more
than five hundred are known to exist.
Attempts have been made by Tauber
and bv Mr. Edward Moore to divide

94 DANTE.

tliem into families witli considerable
success. In tliis way Tauber lias
arranged three hundred and ninety
manuscripts into seventeen categories.
The recovery of Dante's original manu-
script is perhaps not altogether hope-
less. In the course of the last four
hundred years about three hundred
and fifty editions of Dante have been
published, of which fifteen appeared
in the fifteenth century, thirty in the
sixteenth, three in the seventeenth,
thirty-one in the eighteenth, and the
rest in the nineteenth. The editions of
the fifteenth century probably repro-
duce more or less faithfully some
particular codex. The foundation of
all later editions is the Aldine of 1502,
printed from a manuscript belonging to

EDITIONS OF DANTE. 95

Cardinal Bembo. The edition of Delia
Crusca. edited by Bastiano dei Reni
in 1595, introduced about six hundred
and fifty changes, mostly arbitrary,
into the Aldine text, and has been
frequently reprinted. Yolpi, in his
edition called the Comiuiana, published
at Padua in 1726-27, corrected many
errors and added some useful indices,
and a similar text was undertaken by
the Four Florentines in 1837, amone
whom was Gino Capponi. The first
really critical edition of the Commedia,
is that of Karl AYitte, published at
Berlin 1862. It is based on the
authority of four manuscripts, those of
Santa Croce, of the Vatican, of Berlin,
and of the Caetani family, the readings
of which are registered with great

96 DASTE.

accuracy, as are also those of the Aldine
clella Cruscan and Four Florentine
editions. Xo reading is admitted into
the text which is not supported by the
authority of at least one of these manu-
scripts. Besides these we may mention
the reprint of four primitive editions
of the Commediay those of Jesi Foligno,
Mantua and Xaples, published by Lord
Yernon in 1858, the first Florentine
edition of Landino, 1481, with engrav-
ings taken from Botticelli's drawings
and the Paduan edition of 1822, in five
volumes, reprinted in one volume at
Prato in 1847-52.

Dante died at the age of fifty-six.
Scartazzini remarks that if he had
lived twenty years longer he would
have jDrobably written his own commen-

COMMENTARIES. 97

tary on tlie Commedia, T^'liicli would
have made otliers almost superfluous.
As it is, we possess a number of com-
mentaries T^^ritten, if not during the
poet's life, at least immediately after
his death. Perhaps the oldest is the
anonymous commentary published by
Selmi at Ttirin, in 1865. Selmi believes
that the notes were written either in
the year of Dante's death or a year
later. The writer belonged to the fac-
tion of the Xeri ; he does not therefore
show himself particularly friendly either
to Dante or to the sentiments he ex-
presses. His historical and exegetical
authority is very small.

The anonymous commentary pub-
lished by Lord Yernon at Florence, in
1848, is a translation of the Latin notes

H

98 DANTE.

of Ser Graziulo cle' Bambagiuoli, written
in 132-i. Tliis commentarj contains
some historical notices of importance.
The commentarj attributed to Jacopo,
the son of Dante (Florence, 1848), was
written in 1323 or 1324, and is attested
" lo Jacopo, figliuolo di Dante " ; it
has very little value. The commen-
tary of Jacopo della Lana, of Bologna,
written between 1321 and 1328, is of
very great importance. It exists in
forty-two manuscripts, and was the first
commentary that was printed, as it
occurs both in the edition of Yindolin
of Paris, in 1477, and in that of Xido-
beata, at Milan, in 1477-78. It may be
regarded as the father of all Dante
commentaries.

Another commentary which, from its

''OTTIMO'' COMMEXTO. 99

great reputation, received the name of
Ottimo, or the very best, was written
probably by Andrea Lancia, a notary
of Florence, about the year 1334. The
author mentions his personal relations
with Dante, and states that he had
asked his advice about the meanino* of
certain verses. Scartazzini remarks
that the commentator evidently wearied
of his task before he reached the end
of it. The notes to the Inferno were
written almost entirely by himself; in
those on the Purgatory he copies Delia
Lana freely, and in the Paradise has
very little of his own. The historical
notes of these two commentators are
especially important. The Ottinio com-
mentary was first published by Ales-
sandro Torri, at Pisa, in 1827-29.

loo DANTE.

Anotlier very important commentary
is that of Pietro, the son of Dante,
written in 1340. The principal value
lies in its theological and scholastic
erudition. It was first published at the
expense of Lord Yernon at Florence,
in 1845. In 1373, the Florentines
established a chair for public lectures
on the text of Dante, and appointed
to it Giovanni Boccaccio, the famous
novelist, then in advanced years. He
did not continue his commentary be-
yond canto xvi. of the Inferno. Scar-
tazzini says that Boccaccio took as his
model Dante's own commentary on the
Convito. The commentary of Boccaccio
was first printed at IN'aples in 1724.
The most voluminous and historically
the most important early commentator on

BENVENUTO DA IMOLA. lor

Dante is Benveniito Rambaldi da Imola.
It was written in Latin in 1379. The
antlior probably attended the lectures
of Boccaccio at Florence, and in 1875
expounded the Commedia at Bologne.
Muratori made copious extracts from
this commentary in the first volume of
his Antiquitates Italicce, but the work
was not published until 1887, when it
saw the light at Florence under the
editorship of Sir James Lacaita, and at
the expense of AYilliam barren Yernon.-
The last of the commentators of the
fourteenth century is Dianesso da Buti,
who was born in 1324 near Pisa, and died
at Pisa in 1406. He lectured on the
Commedia in the University of Pisa.
Buti applied his attention especially to
questions of grammar. This commen-

I02 DAA'TE.

tary was published at Pisa by Crescentino
Giannini in 1858-62. The commen-
tary of the Anonimo Fiorentino, ^hich
dates from the end of the fourteenth
to the beginning of the fifteenth cen-
tury, is said by Scartazzini to contain
very little that is original. It is obvious
that the most important of these ancient
commentaries are those of Jacopo della
Lana, Pietro di Dante, Boccaccio, Ben-
venuto de Imola, and Buti.

Passing to later times, the commen-
tary of Lambino, published at Florence
in 1482, is of great value. Amongst
modern commentaries, that of Scar-
tazzini, published by Brockhaus of
Leipzig, Tvith a fourth volume of
Prolegomeni, is by far the best. The
translations of king John of Saxony,

TRA NSLA TIOXS. 1 03

under the name of Pliilaletlies, and of
Karl AYitte also contain admirable
notes. TTe should also mention the
special dictionaries of Blanc, Bocci and
Poletto, and the concordance of L. A.
Fay.

Dante has been translated into almost
all modern languages ; the earliest ver-
sions are probably those into Provencal,
several of yrhich exist in manuscript,
but have never been published. The
principal translations in English are
those of Gary (1806) ; F. Pollock ;
J. A. Carlyle, of the Inferno, only into
prose, 1849 ; Longfellow, 1867 ; and
Butler of the Purgaforij and Paradise.
The most widely read translation is
that of Longfellow, and it perhaps gives
the best idea of the orisinal. The

4

I04 DANTE.

notes also are extremely good. The
best German translation — indeed indis-
pensable to the student on account of
its admirable notes — is that of Phila-
lethes mentioned above. The transla-
tion of Musurus into modern Grreek is
also Tvorthy of especial commendation.

Butler 4 Tanner, Tlie Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

en

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