It was no wonder that Florence lay open to
the reproach that her counsels were such that what she spun in
October did not reach to mid-November (Purgatory,' vi.
the reproach that her counsels were such that what she spun in
October did not reach to mid-November (Purgatory,' vi.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v08 - Dah to Dra
Well the lee brace; haul taut
to windward," and the royals were set. These brought us
up again; but the wind continuing light, the California set
hers, and it was soon evident that she was walking away from
us. Our captain then hailed and said that he should keep off
to his course; adding, "She isn't the Alert now. If I had
her in your trim she would have been out of sight by this
time. " This was good-naturedly answered from the California,
and she braced sharp up, and stood close upon the wind up
the coast; while we squared away our yards, and stood before
the wind to the
the south-southwest. The California's crew
manned her weather rigging, waved their hats in the air, and
gave us three hearty cheers, which we answered as heartily,
and the customary single cheer came back to us from over
the water. She stood on her way, doomed to eighteen months'
or two years' hard service upon that hated coast; while we
were making our way home, to which every hour and every
mile was bringing us nearer.
――――――
## p. 4314 (#77) ############################################
## p. 4314 (#78) ############################################
1440 24
ALIGHIERI DANTE.
Grosch
## p. 4314 (#79) ############################################
24
2. *1*L
14
15. .
e Prats cl
"
th
!
*། ན
1.
1.
11
A 712
i c
41, CH
11.
Suple
วิ
it
11.
1,
[^54290,00
44
11
not
41
སྤྱི་
1965
15
וי
6
i
CMON JS
***
JA SKIC
C॰&*¥
་ ་
1
NIL
17
Mage
:
""
"
12
. "ז.
## p. 4314 (#80) ############################################
224
915
38082
## p. 4315 (#81) ############################################
4315
DANTE
(1265-1321)
BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
I
O ACQUIRE a love for the best poetry, and a just understand-
ing of it, is the chief end of the study of literature; for it
is by means of poetry that the imagination is quickened,
nurtured, and invigorated, and it is only through the exercise of his
imagination that man can live a life that is in a true sense worth
living. For it is the imagination which lifts him from the petty,
transient, and physical interests that engross the greater part of his
time and thoughts in self-regarding pursuits, to the large, permanent,
and spiritual interests that ennoble his nature, and transform him
from a solitary individual into a member of the brotherhood of the
human race.
In the poet the imagination works more powerfully and consist-
ently than in other men, and thus qualifies him to become the
teacher and inspirer of his fellows. He sees men, by its means,
more clearly than they see themselves; he discloses them to them-
selves, and reveals to them their own dim ideals. He becomes the
interpreter of his age to itself; and not merely of his own age is he
the interpreter, but of man to man in all ages. For change as the
world may in outward aspect, with the rise and fall of empires,-
change as men may, from generation to generation, in knowledge,
belief, and manners,-human nature remains unalterable in its ele-
ments, unchanged from age to age; and it is human nature, under its
various guises, with which the great poets deal.
The Iliad and the Odyssey do not become antiquated to us. The
characters of Shakespeare are perpetually modern. Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, stand alone in the closeness of their relation to nature.
Each after his own manner gives us a view of life, as seen by the
poetic imagination, such as no other poet has given to us. Homer,
first of all poets, shows us individual personages sharply defined, but
in the early stages of intellectual and moral development, the first
representatives of the race at its conscious entrance upon the path of
progress, with simple motives, simple theories of existence, simple
and limited experience. He is plain and direct in the presentation
## p. 4316 (#82) ############################################
4316
DANTE
of life, and in the substance no less than in the expression of his
thought.
In Shakespeare's work the individual man is no less sharply
defined, no less true to nature, but the long procession of his per-
sonages is wholly different in effect from that of the Iliad and the
Odyssey. They have lost the simplicity of the older race; they are
the products of a longer and more varied experience; they have
become more complex. And Shakespeare is plain and direct neither
in the substance of his thought nor in the expression of it. The
world has grown older, and in the evolution of his nature man has
become conscious of the irreconcilable paradoxes of life, and more or
less aware that while he is infinite in faculty, he is also the quint-
essence of dust. But there is one essential characteristic in which
Shakespeare and Homer resemble each other as poets,—that they
both show to us the scene of life without the interference of their
own personality. Each simply holds the mirror up to nature, and
lets us see the reflection, without making comment on the show. If
there be a lesson in it we must learn it for ourselves.
Dante comes between the two, and differs more widely from each
of them than they from one another. They are primarily poets.
He is primarily a moralist who is also a poet. Of Homer the man,
and of Shakespeare the man, we know, and need to know, nothing;
it is only with them as poets that we are concerned. But it is need-
ful to know Dante as man, in order fully to appreciate him as poet.
He gives us his world not as reflection from an unconscious and
indifferent mirror, but as from a mirror that shapes and orders its
reflections for a definite end beyond that of art, and extraneous to it.
And in this lies the secret of Dante's hold upon so many and so
various minds. He is the chief poet of man as a moral being.
To understand aright the work of any great poet we must know
the conditions of his times; but this is not enough in the case of
Dante. We must know not only the conditions of the generation to
which he belonged, we must also know the specific conditions which
shaped him into the man he was, and differentiated him from his
fellows. How came he, endowed with a poetic imagination which
puts him in the same class with Homer and Shakespeare, not to be
content, like them, to give us a simple view of the phantasmagoria of
life, but eager to use the fleeting images as instruments by which to
enforce the lesson of righteousness, to set forth theory of existence
and a scheme of the universe?
The question cannot be answered without a consideration of the
change wrought in the life and thoughts of men in Europe by the
Christian doctrine as expounded and enforced by the Roman Church,
and of the simultaneous changes in outward conditions resulting from
## p. 4317 (#83) ############################################
DANTE
4317
the destruction of the ancient civilization, and the slow evolution of
the modern world as it rose from the ruins of the old. The period
which immediately preceded and followed the fall of the Roman
Empire was too disorderly, confused, and broken for men during its
course to be conscious of the directions in which they were treading.
Century after century passed without settled institutions, without
orderly language, without literature, without art. But institutions,
languages, literature and art were germinating, and before the end.
of the eleventh century clear signs of a new civilization were mani-
fest in Western Europe. The nations, distinguished by differences of
race and history, were settling down within definite geographical
limits; the various languages were shaping themselves for the uses
of intercourse and of literature; institutions accommodated to actual
needs were growing strong; here and there the social order was
becoming comparatively tranquil and secure. Progress once begun
became rapid, and the twelfth century is one of the most splendid
periods of the intellectual life of man expressing itself in an infinite
variety of noble and attractive forms. These new conditions were
most strongly marked in France: in Provence at the South, and in
and around the Île de France at the North; and from both these
regions a quickening influence diffused itself eastward into Italy.
The conditions of Italy throughout the Dark and Middle Ages
were widely different from those of other parts of Europe. Through
all the ruin and confusion of these centuries a tradition of ancient
culture and ancient power was handed down from generation to gen-
eration, strongly affecting the imagination of the Italian people,
whether recent invaders or descendants of the old population. Italy
had never had a national unity and life, and the divisions of her dif-
ferent regions remained as wide in the later as in the earlier times;
but there was one sentiment which bound all her various and con-
flicting elements in a common bond, which touched every Italian
heart and roused every Italian imagination,- the sentiment of the
imperial grandeur and authority of Rome. Shrunken, feeble, fallen
as the city was, the thought of what she had once been still occupied
the fancy of the Italian people, determined their conceptions of the
government of the world, and quickened within them a glow of patri-
otic pride. Her laws were still the main fount of whatsoever law
existed for the maintenance of public and private right; the imperial
dignity, however interrupted in transmission, however often assumed
by foreign and barbarian conquerors, was still, to the imagination,
supreme above all other earthly titles; the story of Roman deeds
was known of all men; the legends of Roman heroes were the famil-
iar tales of infancy and age. Cities that had risen since Rome fell
claimed, with pardonable falsehood, to have had their origin from her,
## p. 4318 (#84) ############################################
4318
DANTE
and their rulers adopted the designations of her consuls and her sen-
ators. The fragments of her literature that had survived the destruc-
tion of her culture were the models for the rude writers of ignorant
centuries, and her language formed the basis for the new language
which was gradually shaping itself in accordance with the slowly
growing needs of expression. The traces of her material dominion,
the ruins of her wide arch of empire, were still to be found from the
far West to the farther East, and were but the types and emblems
of her moral dominion in the law, the language, the customs, the
traditions of the different lands. Nothing in the whole course of
profane history has so affected the imaginations of men, or so influ-
enced their destinies, as the achievements and authority of Rome.
The Roman Church inherited, together with the city, the tradition
of Roman dominion over the world. Ancient Rome largely shaped
modern Christianity,- by the transmission of the idea of the author-
ity which the Empire once exerted to the Church which grew up
upon its ruins.
The tremendous drama of Roman history displayed
itself to the imagination from scene to scene, from act to act, with
completeness of poetic progress and climax,- first the growth, the
extension, the absoluteness of material supremacy, the heathen being
made the instruments of Divine power for preparing the world for
the revelation of the true God; then the tragedy of Christ's death
wrought by Roman hands, and the expiation of it in the fall of the
Roman imperial power; followed by the new era in which Rome
again was asserting herself as mistress of the world, but now with
spiritual instead of material supremacy, and with a dominion against
which the gates of hell itself should not prevail.
It was, indeed, not at once that this conception of the Church as
the inheritor of the rights of Rome to the obedience of mankind
took form. It grew slowly and against opposition. But at the end
of the eleventh century, through the genius of Pope Gregory VII. ,
the ideas hitherto disputed, of the supreme authority of the Pope
within the Church and of the supremacy of the Church over the
State, were established as the accepted ecclesiastical theory, and
adopted as the basis of the definitely organized ecclesiastical system.
Little more than a hundred years later, at the beginning of the thir-
teenth century, Innocent III. enforced the claims of the Church with
a vigor and ability hardly less than that of his great predecessor,
maintaining openly that the Pope-Pontifex Maximus — was the
vicar of God upon earth.
This theory was the logical conclusion from a long series of his-
toric premises; and resting upon a firm foundation of dogma, it was
supported by the genuine belief, no less than by the worldly inter-
ests and ambitions, of those who profited by it. The ideal it
## p. 4319 (#85) ############################################
DANTE
4319
presented was at once a simple and a noble conception,— narrow
indeed, for the ignorance of men was such that only narrow concep-
tions, in matters relating to the nature and destiny of man and the
order of the universe, were possible. But it was a theory that
offered an apparently sufficient solution of the mysteries of religion,
of the relation between God and man, between the visible creation
and the unseen world. It was a theory of a material rather than a
spiritual order: it reduced the things of the spirit into terms of the
things of the flesh. It was crude, it was easily comprehensible, it
was fitted to the mental conditions of the age.
The power which the Church claimed, and which to a large
degree it exercised over the imagination and over the conduct of the
Middle Ages, was the power which belonged to its head as the
earthly representative and vicegerent of God. No wonder that such
power was often abused, and that the corruption among the ministers
of the Church was wide-spread. Yet in spite of abuse, in spite of
corruption, the Church was the ark of civilization.
―
The religious - no less than the intellectual-life of Europe had
revived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and had displayed its
fervor in the marvels of Crusades and of church-building,— external
modes of manifesting zeal for the glory of God, and ardor for per-
sonal salvation. But with the progress of intelligence the spirit
which had found its expression in these modes of service, now, in
the thirteenth century in Italy, fired the hearts of men with an even
more intense and far more vital flame, quickening within them
sympathies which had long lain dormant, and which now at last
burst into activity in efforts and sacrifices for the relief of misery,
and for the bringing of all men within the fold of Christian brother-
hood. St. Francis and St. Dominic, in founding their orders, and
in setting an example to their brethren, only gave measure and direc-
tion to a common impulse.
Yet such were the general hardness of heart and cruelty of tem-
per which had resulted from the centuries of violence, oppression,
and suffering, out of which Italy with the rest of Europe was slowly
emerging, that the strivings of religious emotion and the efforts of
humane sympathy were less powerful to bring about an improve-
ment in social order than influences which had their root in material
conditions. Chief among these was the increasing strength of the
civic communities, through the development of industry and of com-
merce. The people of the cities, united for the protection of their
common interests, were gaining a sense of power. The little people,
as they were called,-mechanics, tradesmen, and the like,
organizing themselves, and growing strong enough to compel the
great to submit to the restrictions of a more or less orderly and
were
――――
## p. 4320 (#86) ############################################
4320
DANTE
peaceful life. In spite of the violent contentions of the great, in
spite of frequent civic uproar, of war with neighbors, of impassioned
party disputes, in spite of incessant interruptions of their tranquillity,
many of the cities of Italy were advancing in prosperity and wealth.
No one of them made more rapid and steady progress than Florence.
The history of Florence during the thirteenth century is a splendid
tale of civic energy and resolute self-confidence. The little city was
full of eager and vigorous life. Her story abounds in picturesque
incident. She had her experience of the turn of the wheel of
Fortune, being now at the summit of power in Tuscany, now in the
depths of defeat and humiliation.
The spiritual emotion, the improvement in the conditions of
society, the increase of wealth, the growth in power of the cities of
Italy, were naturally accompanied by a corresponding intellectual
development, and the thirteenth century became for Italy what the
twelfth had been for France, a period of splendid activity in the
expression of her new life. Every mode of expression in literature
and in the arts was sought and practiced, at first with feeble and
ignorant hands, but with steady gain of mastery. At the beginning
of the century the language was a mere spoken tongue, not yet
shaped for literary use. But the example of Provence was strongly
felt at the court of the Emperor Frederick II. in Sicily, and the first
half of the century was not ended before many poets were imitating
in the Italian tongue the poems of the troubadours. Form and sub-
stance were alike copied; there is scarcely a single original note; but
the practice was of service in giving suppleness to the language, in
forming it for nobler uses, and in opening the way for poetry which
should be Italian in sentiment as well as in words. At the north of
Italy the influence of the trouvères was felt in like manner. Every-
where the desire for expression was manifest. The spring had come,
the young birds had begun to twitter, but no full song was yet heard.
Love was the main theme of the poets, but it had few accents of
sincerity; the common tone was artificial, was unreal.
In the second half of the century new voices are heard, with
accents of genuine and natural feeling; the poets begin to treat the
old themes with more freshness, and to deal with religion, politics,
and morals, as well as with love. The language still possesses,
indeed, the quality of youth; it is still pliant, its forms have not
become stiffened by age, it is fit for larger use than has yet been
made of it, and lies ready and waiting, like a noble instrument, for
the hand of the master which shall draw from it its full harmonies
and reveal its latent power in the service he exacts from it.
But it was not in poetry alone that the life of Italy found expres-
sion. Before the invention of printing,- which gave to the literary
## p. 4321 (#87) ############################################
DANTE
VIII-271
4321
arts such an advantage as secured their pre-eminence,- architecture,
sculpture, and painting were hardly less important means for the ex-
pression of the ideals of the imagination and the creative energy of
man. The practice of them had never wholly ceased in Italy; but
her native artists had lost the traditions of technical skill; their work
was rude and childish. The conventional and lifeless forms of Byzan-
tine art in its decline were adopted by workmen who no longer felt
the impulse, and no longer possessed the capacity, of original design.
Venice and Pisa, early enriched by Eastern commerce, and with citi-
zens both instructed and inspired by knowledge of foreign lands, had
begun great works of building even in the eleventh century; but
these works had been designed, and mainly executed, by masters
from abroad. But now the awakened soul of Italy breathed new life
into all the arts in its efforts at self-expression. A splendid revival
began. The inspiring influence of France was felt in the arts of
construction and design as it had been felt in poetry. The magnifi-
cent display of the highest powers of the imagination and the intelli-
gence in France, the creation during the twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries of the unrivaled productions of Gothic art, stimulated and
quickened the growth of the native art of Italy. But the French
forms were seldom adopted for direct imitation, as the forms of Pro-
vençal poetry had been. The power of classic tradition was strong
enough to resist their attraction. The taste of Italy rejected the
marvels of Gothic design in favor of modes of expression inherited
from her own past, but vivified with fresh spirit, and adapted to her
new requirements. The inland cities, as they grew rich through
native industry and powerful through the organization of their citi-
zens, were stirred with rivalry to make themselves beautiful, and the
motives of religion no less than those of civic pride contributed to
their adornment. The Church was the object of interest common to
all. Piety, superstition, pride, emulation, all alike called for art in
which their spirit should be embodied. The imagination answered to
the call. The eyes of the artist were once more opened to see the
beauty of life, and his hand sought to reproduce it. The bonds
of tradition were broken. The Greek marble vase on the platform of
the Duomo at Pisa taught Niccola Pisano the right methods of sculp-
ture, and directed him to the source of his art in the study of
nature. His work was a new wonder and delight, and showed the
way along which many followed him. Painting took her lesson from
sculpture, and before the end of the century both arts had become
responsive to the demand of the time, and had entered upon that
course of triumph which was not to end till, three centuries later,
chisel and brush dropped from hands enfeebled in the general decline
of national vigor, and incapable of resistance to the tyrannous and
exclusive autocracy of the printed page.
## p. 4322 (#88) ############################################
4322
DANTE
But it was not only the new birth of sentiment and emotion
which quickened these arts: it was also the aroused curiosity of men
concerning themselves, their history, and the earth. They felt their
own ignorance. The vast region of the unknown, which encircled
with its immeasurable spaces the little tract of the known world,
appealed to their fancy and their spirit of enterprise, with its bound-
less promise and its innumerable allurements to adventure. Learn-
ing, long confined and starved in the cell of the monk, was coming
out into the open world, and was gathering fresh stores alike from
the past and the present. The treasures of the wisdom and knowl-
edge of the Greeks were eagerly sought, especially in translations
of Aristotle,-translations which, though imperfect indeed, and dis-
figured by numberless misinterpretations and mistakes, nevertheless
contained a body of instruction invaluable as a guide and stimulant
to the awakened intelligence. Encyclopedic compends of knowledge
put at the disposition of students all that was known or fancied in
the various fields of science. The division between knowledge and
belief was not sharply drawn, and the wonders of legend and of
fable were accepted with as ready a faith as the actual facts of
observation and of experience. Travelers for gain or for adventure,
and missionaries for the sake of religion, were venturing to lands
hitherto unvisited. The growth of knowledge, small as it was com-
pared with later increase, widened thought and deepened life. The
increase of thought strengthened the faculties of the mind. Man
becomes more truly man in proportion to what he knows, and one of
the most striking and characteristic features of this great century is
the advance of man through increase of knowledge out of childish-
ness towards maturity. The insoluble problems which had been
discussed with astonishing acuteness by the schoolmen of the preced-
ing generation were giving place to a philosophy of more immediate
application to the conduct and discipline of life. The Summa Theo-
logica of St. Thomas Aquinas not only treated with incomparable
logic the vexed questions of scholastic philosophy, but brought all
the resources of a noble and well-trained intelligence and of a fine
moral sense to the study and determination of the order and govern-
ment of the universe, and of the nature and destiny of man.
The scope of learning remained, indeed, at the end of the cen-
tury, narrow in its range. The little tract of truth which men had
acquired lay encompassed by ignorance, like a scant garden-plot sur-
rounded by a high wall. But here and there the wall was broken
through, and paths were leading out into wider fields to be won for
culture, or into deserts wider still, in which the wanderers should
perish.
But as yet there was no comprehensive and philosophic grasp of
the new conditions in their total significance; no harmonizing of
## p. 4323 (#89) ############################################
DANTE
4323
their various elements into one consistent scheme of human life; no
criticism of the new life as a whole. For this task was required not
only acquaintance with the whole range of existing knowledge, by
which the conceptions of men in regard to themselves and the uni-
verse were determined, but also a profound view of the meaning of
life itself, and an imaginative insight into the nature of man. A
mere image of the drama of life as presented to the eye would not
suffice. The meaning of it would be lost in the confusion and multi-
plicity of the scene. The only possible explanation and reconcile-
ment of its aspects lay in the universal application to them of the
moral law, and in the exhibition of man as a spiritual and immortal
being for whom this world was but the first stage of existence.
was the task undertaken and accomplished by Dante.
This
II
Of the events in Dante's life few are precisely ascertained, but of
its general course enough is known, either from his own statements
or from external testimony, to show the essential relations between
his life and his work, and the influence of his experience upon his
convictions and character. Most of the biographies of him are un-
trustworthy, being largely built up upon a foundation of inferences.
and suppositions, and often filled out with traditions and stories of
which the greater part are certainly false and few have a likelihood
of truth. The only strictly contemporary account of him is that
given by the excellent Chronicler of Florence, Giovanni Villani, a
man of weight and judgment, who in the ninth book of his Chron-
icle, under the year 1321, recording Dante's death, adds a brief nar-
rative of his life and works; because, as he says, «< on account of the
virtues and knowledge and worth of so great a citizen, it seems to
us to be fitting to give a perpetual memorial of him in this our
chronicle, although the noble works left by him in writing afford a
true testimonial to him, and honorable fame to our city. " "Dante
was," says Villani, an honorable and ancient citizen of Florence, of
the gate of San Piero, and our neighbor. " "He was a great master
in almost every branch of knowledge, although he was a layman; he
was a supreme poet and philosopher, and a perfect rhetorician alike
in prose and verse, as well as a most noble orator in public speech,
supreme in rhyme, with the most polished and beautiful style that
had ever been in our language.
Because of his knowledge
he was somewhat presumptuous, disdainful, and haughty; and, as it
were after the manner of a philosopher, having little graciousness,
he knew not well to bear himself with common people (conversare
con laici). "
«<
## p. 4324 (#90) ############################################
DANTE
4324
癞
Dante was born in Florence, in May or June 1265. Of his family
little is positively known. * It was not among the nobles of the city,
but it had place among the well-to-do citizens who formed the body
of the State and the main support of the Guelf party. Of Dante's
early years, and the course of his education, nothing is known save
what he himself tells us in his various writings or what may be
inferred from them. Lionardo Bruni, eminent as an historian and as
a public man, who wrote a Life of Dante about a hundred years
after his death, cites a letter of which we have no other knowledge,
in which, if the letter be genuine, the poet says that he took part in
the battle of Campaldino, fought in June 1289. The words are:-" At
the battle of Campaldino, in which the Ghibelline party was almost
all slain and undone, I found myself not a child in arms, and I
experienced great fear, and finally the greatest joy, because of the
shifting fortunes of the fight. " It seems likely that Dante was pres-
ent, probably under arms, in the later part of the same summer, at
the surrender to the Florentines of the Pisan stronghold of Caprona,
where, he says ('Inferno,' xxi. 94-96), “I saw the foot soldiers afraid,
who came out under compact from Caprona, seeing themselves among
so many enemies. ”
Years passed before any other event in Dante's life is noted with
a certain date. An imperfect record preserved in the Florentine
archives mentions his taking part in a discussion in the so-called
Council of a Hundred Men, on the 5th of June, 1296. This is of import-
ance as indicating that he had before this time become a member of
one of the twelve Arts,-enrollment in one of which was required for
the acquisition of the right to exercise political functions in the
State, and also as indicating that he had a place in the chief of
those councils by which public measures were discussed and decided.
The Art of which he was a member was that of the physicians and
druggists (medici e speziali), an Art whose dealings included commerce
in many of the products of the East.
Not far from this time, but whether before or after 1296 is uncer-
tain, he married. His wife was Gemma dei Donati. The Donati
were a powerful family among the grandi of the city, and played a
leading part in the stormy life of Florence. Of Gemma nothing is
known but her marriage.
Between 1297 and 1299, Dante, together with his brother Fran-
cesco, as appears from existing documentary evidence, were borrowers
of considerable sums of money; and the largest of the debts thus
*In the 'Paradiso (canto xv. ) he introduces his great-great-grandfather
Cacciaguida, who tells of himself that he followed the Emperor Conrad to
fight against the Mohammedans, was made a knight by him, and was slain in
the war.
## p. 4325 (#91) ############################################
DANTE
4325
incurred seem not to have been discharged till 1332, eleven years after
his death, when they were paid by his sons Jacopo and Pietro.
In May 1299 he was sent as envoy from Florence to the little, not
very distant, city of San Gemignano, to urge its community to take
part in a general council of the Guelf communes of Tuscany.
In the next year, 1300, he was elected one of the six priors of
Florence, to hold office from the 15th of June to the 15th of August.
The priors, together with the "gonfalonier of justice" (who had com-
mand of the body of one thousand men who stood at their service),
formed the chief magistracy of the city. Florence had such jealousy
of its rulers that the priors held office but two months, so that in
the course of each year thirty-six of the citizens were elected to this
magistracy. The outgoing priors, associated with twelve of the lead-
ing citizens, two from each of the sestieri or wards of the city, chose
their successors. Neither continuity nor steady vigor of policy was
possible with an administration so shifting and of such varied com-
position, which by its very constitution was exposed at all times to
intrigue and to attack.
It was no wonder that Florence lay open to
the reproach that her counsels were such that what she spun in
October did not reach to mid-November (Purgatory,' vi. 142-144).
His election to the priorate was the most important event in Dante's
public life. "All my ills and all my troubles," he declared, "had
occasion and beginning from my misfortunate election to the priorate,
of which, though I was not worthy in respect of wisdom, yet I was
not unworthy in fidelity and in age. "*
The year 1300 was disastrous not only for Dante but for Florence.
She was, at the end of the thirteenth century, by far the most flour-
ishing and powerful city of Tuscany, full of vitality and energy, and
beautiful as she was strong. She was not free from civil discord,
but the predominance of the Guelf party was so complete within her
walls that she suffered little from the strife between Guelf and
Ghibelline, which for almost a century had divided Italy into two
hostile camps. In the main the Guelf party was that of the common
people and the industrious classes, and in general it afforded support
to the Papacy as against the Empire, while it received, in return,
support from the popes. The Ghibellines, on the other hand, were
mainly of the noble class, and maintainers of the Empire. The
growth of the industry and commerce of Florence in the last half of
the century had resulted in the establishment of the popular power,
and in the suppression of the Ghibelline interest. But a bitter quar-
rel broke out in one of the great families in the neighboring Guelf
city of Pistoia, a quarrel which raged so furiously that Florence
* From the letter already referred to, cited by Lionardo Bruni.
## p. 4326 (#92) ############################################
4326
DANTE
feared that it would result in the gain of power by the Ghibel-
lines, and she adopted the fatal policy of compelling the heads of the
contending factions to take up their residence within her walls. The
result was that she herself became the seat of discord. Each of the
two factions found ardent adherents, and, adopting the names by
which they had been distinguished in Pistoia, Florence was almost
instantly ablaze with the passionate quarrel between the Whites and
the Blacks (Bianchi and Neri). The flames burned so high that the
Pope, Boniface VIII. , intervened to quench them. His intervention
was vain.
worse.
It was just at this time that Dante became prior. The need of
action to restore peace to the city was imperative, and the priors
took the step of banishing the leaders of both divisions. Among
those of the Bianchi was Dante's own nearest friend, Guido Caval-
cante. The measure was insufficient to secure tranquillity and order.
The city was in constant tumult; its conditions went from bad to
But in spite of civil broils, common affairs must still be
attended to, and from a document preserved in the Archives at
Florence we learn that on the 28th April, 1301, Dante was appointed
superintendent, without salary, of works undertaken for the widening,
straightening, and paving of the street of San Procolo and making it
safe for travel. On the 13th of the same month he took part in a
discussion, in the Council of the Heads of the twelve greater Arts, as
to the mode of procedure in the election of future priors. On the
18th of June, in the Council of the Hundred Men, he advised against
providing the Pope with a force of one hundred men which had been
asked for; and again in September of the same year there is record,
for the last time, of his taking part in the Council, in a discussion
in regard "to the conservation of the Ordinances of Justice and the
Statutes of the People. "
These notices of the part taken by Dante in public affairs seem
at first sight comparatively slight and unimportant; but were one
constructing an ideal biography of him, it would be hard to devise
records more appropriate to the character and principles of the man
as they appear from his writings. The sense of the duty of the
individual to the community of which he forms a part was one
of his strongest convictions; and his being put in charge of the
opening of the street of San Procolo, and making it safe for travel,
"eo quod popularis comitatus absque strepitu et briga magnatum et
potentum possunt secure venire ad dominos priores et vexilliferum
justitiæ cum expedit" (so that the common people may, without uproar
and harassing of magnates and mighty men, have access whenever it
be desirable to the Lord Priors and the Standard-Bearer of Justice),
affords a comment on his own criticism of his fellow-citizens, whose
## p. 4327 (#93) ############################################
DANTE
4327
disposition to shirk the burden of public duty is more than once
the subject of his satire. "Many refuse the common burden, but
thy people, my Florence, eagerly replies without being called on,
and cries, I load myself» (Purgatory,' vi. 133-135). His counsel
against providing the Pope with troops was in conformity with
his fixed political conviction that the function of the Papacy was to
be confined to the spiritual government of mankind; and nothing
could be more striking, as a chance incident, than that the last
occasion on which he, whose heart was set on justice, took part in
the counsels of his city, should have been for the discussion of the
means for "the conservation of the ordinances of justice and the
statutes of the people. "
In the course of events in 1300 and 1301 the Bianchi proved the
stronger of the two factions by which the city was divided, they
resisted with success the efforts of the Pope in support of their
rivals, and they were charged by their enemies with intent to restore
the rule of the city to the Ghibellines. While affairs were in this
state, Charles of Valois, brother to the King of France, Philip the
Fair, was passing through Italy with a troop of horsemen to join
Charles II. of Naples,* in the attempt to regain Sicily from the hands
of Frederic of Aragon. The Pope favored the expedition, and held
out flattering promises to Charles. The latter reached Anagni, where
Boniface was residing, in September 1301. Here it was arranged
that before proceeding to Sicily, Charles should undertake to reduce
to obedience the refractory opponents of the Pope in Tuscany. The
title of the Pacifier of Tuscany was bestowed on him, and he moved
toward Florence with his own troop and a considerable additional
force of men-at-arms. He was met on his way by deputies from
Florence, to whom he made fair promises; and trusting to his good
faith, the Florentines opened their gates to him and he entered the
city on All Saints' Day (November 1st), 1301.
Charles had hardly established himself in his quarters before he
cast his pledges to the wind. The exiled Neri, with his connivance,
broke into the city, and for six days worked their will upon their
enemies, slaying many of them, pillaging and burning their houses,
while Charles looked on with apparent unconcern at the wide-spread
ruin and devastation. New priors, all of them from the party of the
Neri, entered upon office in mid-November, and a new Podestà,
Cante dei Gabrielli of Agobbio, was charged with the administration
of justice. The persecution of the Bianchi was carried on with con-
sistent thoroughness: many were imprisoned, many fined, Charles
* Charles II. of Naples was the cousin of Philip III. , the Bold, of France,
the father of Charles of Valois; and in 1290 Charles of Valois had married
his daughter.
## p. 4328 (#94) ############################################
4328
DANTE
sharing in the sums exacted from them. On the 27th of January,
1302, a decree was issued by the Podestà condemning five persons,
one of whom was Dante, to fine and banishment on account of
crimes alleged to have been committed by them while holding office
as priors. "According to public report," said the decree, "they com-
mitted barratry, sought illicit gains, and practiced unjust extortions
of money or goods. " These general charges are set forth with elab-
orate legal phraseology, and with much repetition of phrase, but
without statement of specific instances. The most important of them
are that the accused had spent money of the commune in opposing
the Pope, in resistance to the coming of Charles of Valois, and
against the peace of the city and the Guelf party; that they had
promoted discord in the city of Pistoia, and had caused the expulsion
from that city of the Neri, the faithful adherents of the Holy Roman
Church; and that they had caused Pistoia to break its union with
Florence, and to refuse subjection to the Church and to Charles the
Pacificator of Tuscany. These being the charges, the decree pro-
ceeded to declare that the accused, having been summoned to appear
within a fixed time before the Podestà and his court to make their
defense, under penalty for non-appearance of five thousand florins
each, and having failed to do so, were now condemned to pay this sum
and to restore their illicit gains; and if this were not done within
three days from the publication of this sentence against them, all their
possessions (bona) should be seized and destroyed; and should they
make the required payment, they were nevertheless to stand ban-
ished from Tuscany for two years; and for perpetual memory of
their misdeeds their names were to be inscribed in the Statutes of
the People, and as swindlers and barrators they were never to hold
office or benefice within the city or district of Florence.
Six weeks later, on the 10th of March, another decree of the
Podestà was published, declaring the five citizens named in the pre-
ceding decree, together with ten others, to have practically confessed
their guilt by their contumacy in non-appearance when summoned,
and condemning them, if at any time any one of them should come
into the power of Florence, to be burned to death (" talis perveniens
igne comburatur sic quod moriatur "). *
From this time forth till his death Dante was
an exile. The
character of the decrees is such that the charges brought against him
have no force, and leave no suspicion resting upon his actions as an
officer of the State. They are the outcome and expression of the
*These decrees and the other public documents relating to Dante are to be
found in various publications. They have all been collected and edited by
Professor George R. Carpenter, in the tenth and eleventh Annual Reports of
the Dante Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1891, 1892.
## p. 4329 (#95) ############################################
DANTE
4329
bitterness of party rage, and they testify clearly only to his having
been one of the leaders of the parties opposed to the pretensions of
the Pope, and desirous to maintain the freedom of Florence from
foreign intervention.
In April Charles left Florence, "having finished," says Villani, the
eye-witness of these events, "that for which he had come, namely,
under pretext of peace, having driven the White party from Flor-
ence; but from this proceeded many calamities and dangers to our
city. "
The course of Dante's external life in exile is hardly less obscure
than that of his early days. Much concerning it may be inferred
with some degree of probability from passages in his own writ-
ings, or from what is reported by others; but of actual certain facts
there are few. For a time he seems to have remained with his com-
panions in exile, of whom there were hundreds, but he soon sep-
arated himself from them in grave dissatisfaction, making a party by
himself (Paradiso,' xvii. 69), and found shelter at the court of the
Scaligeri at Verona. In August 1306 he was among the witnesses
to a contract at Padua. In October of the same year he was with
Franceschino, Marchese Malespina, in the district called the Luni-
giana, and empowered by him as his special procurator and envoy to
establish the terms of peace for him and his brothers with the Bishop
of Luni. His gratitude to the Malespini for their hospitality and
good-will toward him is proved by one of the most splendid compli-
ments ever paid in verse or prose, the magnificent eulogium of this
great and powerful house with which the eighth canto of the 'Purga-
tory' closes. How long Dante remained with the Malespini, and
whither he went after leaving them, is unknown. At some period of
his exile he was at Lucca (Purgatorio,' xxiv. 45); Villani states that
he was at Bologna, and afterwards at Paris, and in many parts of
the world. He wandered far and wide in Italy, and it may well be
that in the course of his years of exile he went to Paris, drawn
thither by the opportunities of learning which the University afforded;
but nothing is known definitely of his going.
In 1311 the mists which obscure the greater part of Dante's life
in exile are dispelled for a moment, by three letters of unquestioned
authenticity, and we gain a clear view of the poet. In 1310 Henry
of Luxemburg, a man who touched the imagination of his contempo-
raries by his striking presence and chivalric accomplishments as well
as by his high character and generous aims, "a man just, religious,
and strenuous in arms," having been elected Emperor, as Henry VII. ,
prepared to enter Italy, with intent to confirm the imperial rights
and to restore order to the distracted land. The Pope, Clement V. ,
favored his coming, and the prospect opened by it was hailed not
## p. 4330 (#96) ############################################
4330
DANTE
only by the Ghibellines with joy, but by a large part of the Guelfs
as well; with the hope that the long discord and confusion, from
which all had suffered, might be brought to end and give place to
tranquillity and justice. Dante exulted in this new hope; and on the
coming of the Emperor, late in 1310, he addressed an animated
appeal to the rulers and people of Italy, exhorting them in impas-
sioned words to rise up and do reverence to him whom the Lord of
heaven and earth had ordained for their king. "Behold, now is the
accepted time; rejoice, O Italy, dry thy tears; efface, O most beauti-
ful, the traces of mourning; for he is at hand who shall deliver
thee. "
The first welcome of Henry was ardent, and with fair auspices he
assumed at Milan, in January 1311, the Iron Crown, the crown of the
King of Italy. Here at Milan Dante presented himself, and here with
full heart he did homage upon his knees to the Emperor. But the
popular welcome proved hollow; the illusions of hope speedily began
to vanish; revolt broke out in many cities of Lombardy; Florence
remained obdurate, and with great preparations for resistance put
herself at the head of the enemies of the Emperor. Dante, disap-
pointed and indignant, could not keep silence. He wrote a letter
headed "Dante Alaghieri, a Florentine and undeservedly in exile, to
the most wicked Florentines within the city. " It begins with calm
and eloquent words in regard to the divine foundation of the impe-
rial power, and to the sufferings of Italy due to her having been left
without its control to her own undivided will. Then it breaks forth
in passionate denunciation of Florence for her impious arrogance in
venturing to rise up in mad rebellion against the minister of God;
and, warning her of the calamities which her blind obstinacy is pre-
paring for her, it closes with threats of her impending ruin and
desolation. This letter is dated from the springs of the Arno, on
the 31st of March.
The growing force of the opposition which he encountered delayed
the progress of Henry. Dante, impatient of delay, eager to see the
accomplishment of his hope, on the 16th of April addressed Henry
himself in a letter of exalted prophetic exhortation, full of Biblical
language, and of illustrations drawn from sacred and profane story,
urging him not to tarry, but trusting in God, to go out to meet and
to slay the Goliath that stood against him. "Then the Philistines
will flee, and Israel will be delivered, and we, exiles in Babylon, who
groan as we remember the holy Jerusalem, shall then, as citizens
breathing in peace, recall in joy the miseries of confusion. " But
all was in vain. The drama which had opened with such brilliant
expectations was advancing to a tragic close. Italy became more
confused and distracted than ever. One sad event followed after
## p. 4331 (#97) ############################################
DANTE
4331
another. In May the brother of the Emperor fell at the siege of
Brescia; in September his dearly loved wife Margarita, "a holy and
good woman," died at Genoa. The forces hostile to him grew more
and more formidable. He succeeded however in entering Rome in
May 1312, but his enemies held half of the city, and the streets
became the scene of bloody battles; St. Peter's was closed to him,
and Henry, worn and disheartened and in peril, was compelled to
submit to be ingloriously crowned at St. John Lateran. With dimin-
ished strength and with loss of influence he withdrew to Tuscany,
and laid ineffectual siege to Florence. Month after month dragged
along with miserable continuance of futile war. In the summer of
1313, collecting all his forces, Henry prepared to move southward
against the King of Naples. But he was seized with illness, and on
the 24th of August he died at Buonconvento, not far from Siena.
With his death died the hope of union and of peace for Italy. His
work, undertaken with high purpose and courage, had wholly failed.
He had come to set Italy straight before she was ready (Paradiso,'
xxxi. 137). The clouds darkened over her. For Dante the cup of
bitterness overflowed.
How Dante was busied, where he was abiding, during the last
two years of Henry's stay in Italy, we have no knowledge. One
striking fact relating to him is all that is recorded. In the summer
of 1311 the Guelfs in Florence, in order to strengthen themselves
against the Emperor, determined to relieve from ban and to recall
from exile many of their banished fellow-citizens, confident that on
returning home they would strengthen the city in its resistance
against the Emperor. But to the general amnesty which was issued
on the 2d of September there were large exceptions; and impress-
ive evidence of the multitude of the exiles is afforded by the fact
that more than a thousand were expressly excluded from the benefit
of pardon, and were to remain banished and condemned as before.
In the list of those thus still regarded as enemies of Florence stands
the name of Dante.
The death of the Emperor was followed eight months later by
that of the Pope, Clement V. , under whom the papal throne had
been removed from Rome to Avignon. There seemed a chance, if
but feeble, that a new pope might restore the Church to the city
which was its proper home, and thus at least one of the wounds of
Italy be healed. The Conclave was bitterly divided; month after
month went by without a choice, the fate of the Church and of Italy
hanging uncertain in the balance. Dante, in whom religion and
patriotism combined as a single passion, saw with grief that the
return of the Church to Italy was likely to be lost through the
selfishness, the jealousies, and the avarice of her chief prelates;
## p. 4332 (#98) ############################################
4332
DANTE
and under the impulse of the deepest feeling he addressed a letter
of remonstrance, reproach, and exhortation to the Italian cardinals,
who formed but a small minority in the Conclave, but who might
by union and persistence still secure the election of a pope favorable
to the return. This letter is full of a noble but too vehement zeal.
"It is for you, being one at heart, to fight manfully for the Bride of
Christ; for the seat of the Bride, which is Rome; for our Italy, and
in a word, for the whole commonwealth of pilgrims upon earth. "
But words were in vain; and after a struggle kept up for two years
and three months, a pope was at last elected who was to fix the
seat of the Papacy only the more firmly at Avignon. Once more
Dante had to bear the pain of disappointment of hopes in which
selfishness had no part.
And now for years he disappears from sight. What his life was
he tells in a most touching passage near the beginning of his 'Con-
vito:-"From the time when it pleased the citizens of Florence, the
fairest and most famous daughter of Rome, to cast me out from her
sweetest bosom (in which I had been born and nourished even to
the summit of my life, and in which, at good peace with them, I
desire with all my heart to repose my weary soul, and to end the
time which is allotted to me), through almost all the regions to
which our tongue extends I have gone a pilgrim, almost a beggar,
displaying against my will the wound of fortune, which is wont often
to be imputed unjustly to [the discredit of] him who is wounded.
Truly I have been a bark without sail and without rudder, borne to
divers ports and bays and shores by that dry wind which grievous
poverty breathes forth, and I have appeared mean in the eyes of many
who perchance, through some report, had imagined me in other
form; and not only has my person been lowered in their sight, but
every work of mine, whether done or to be done, has been held in
less esteem. "
Once more, and for the last time, during these wanderings he
heard the voice of Florence addressed to him, and still in anger. A
decree was issued* on the 6th of November, 1315, renewing the con-
demnation and banishment of numerous citizens, denounced as Ghibel-
lines and rebels, including among them Dante Aldighieri and his sons.
The persons named in this decree are charged with contumacy, and
with the commission of ill deeds against the good state of the Com-
mune of Florence and the Guelf party; and it is ordered that "if any
*This decree was pronounced in a General Council of the Commune by
the Vicar of King Robert of Naples, into whose hands the Florentines
had given themselves in 1313 for a term of five years, -extended after-
wards to eight,- with the hope that by his authority order might be
preserved within the city.
## p. 4333 (#99) ############################################
DANTE
4333
of them shall fall into the power of the Commune he shall be taken
to the place of Justice and there be beheaded. " The motive is
unknown which led to the inclusion in this decree of the sons of
Dante, of whom there were two, now youths respectively a little
more or a little less than twenty years old. *
It is probable that the last years of Dante's life were passed in
Ravenna, under the protection of Guido da Polenta, lord of the city.
It was here that he died, on September 14th, 1321. His two sons
were with him, and probably also his daughter Beatrice. He was in
his fifty-seventh year when he went from suffering and from exile to
peace (Paradiso,' x. 128).
Such are the few absolute facts known concerning the external
events of Dante's life. A multitude of statements, often with much
circumstantial detail, concerning other incidents, have been made by
his biographers; a few rest upon a foundation of probability, but the
mass are guess-work. There is no need to report them; for small as
the sum of our actual knowledge is, it is enough for defining the field
within which his spiritual life was enacted, and for showing the con-
ditions under which his work was done, and by which its character
was largely determined.
III
No poet has recorded his own inner life more fully or with greater
sincerity than Dante. All his more important writings have essen-
tially the character of a spiritual autobiography, extending from his
boyhood to his latest years. Their quality and worth as works of
literature are largely dependent upon their quality and interest as
revelations of the nature of their writer. Their main significance lies
in this double character.
The earliest of them is the 'Vita Nuova,' or New Life. It is the
narrative in prose and verse of the beginning and course of the love
which made life new for him in his youth, and which became the
permanent inspiration of his later years, and the bond of union for
him between earth and heaven, between the actual and the ideal,
between the human and the divine. The little book begins with an
account of the boy's first meeting, when he was nine years old, with
* Among the letters ascribed to Dante is one, much noted, in reply to a
letter from a friend in Florence, in regard to terms of absolution on which he
might secure his re-admission to Florence. It is of very doubtful authenticity.
It has no external evidence to support it, and the internal evidence of its
rhetorical form and sentimental tone is all against it. It belongs in the same
class with the famous letter of Fra Ilario, and like that, seems not unlikely
to have been an invention of Boccaccio's.
## p. 4334 (#100) ###########################################
4334
DANTE
a little maiden about a year younger, who so touched his heart that
from that time forward Love lorded it over his soul. She was called
Beatrice; but whether this was her true name, or whether, because
of its significance of blessing, it was assigned to her as appropriate to
her nature, is left in doubt. Who her parents were, and what were
the events of her life, are also uncertain; though Boccaccio, who,
some thirty years after Dante's death, wrote a biography of the poet
in which fact and fancy are inextricably intermingled, reports that
he had it upon good authority that she was the daughter of Folco
Portinari, and became the wife of Simone de' Bardi. So far as
Dante's relation to her is concerned, these matters are of no concern.
Just nine years after their first meeting, years during which Dante
says he had often seen her, and her image had stayed constantly
with him, the lady of his love saluted him with such virtue that he
seemed to see all the bounds of bliss, and having already recognized
in himself the art of discoursing in rhyme, he made a sonnet in
which he set forth a vision which had come to him after receiving
his lady's salute. This sonnet has a twofold interest, as being the
earliest of Dante's poetic composition preserved to us, and as describ-
ing a vision which connects it in motive with the vision of the
'Divine Comedy. ' It is the poem of a 'prentice hand not yet master
of its craft, and neither in manner nor in conception has it any
marked distinction from the work of his predecessors and contem-
poraries. The narrative of the first incidents of his love forms the
subject of the first part of the little book, consisting of ten poems
and the prose comment upon them; then the poet takes up a new
theme and devotes ten poems to the praise of his lady. The last of
them is interrupted by her death, which took place on the 9th of
June, 1290, when Dante was twenty-five years old. Then he takes
up another new theme, and the next ten poems are devoted to his
grief, to an episode of temporary unfaithfulness to the memory of
Beatrice, and to the revival of fidelity of love for her.
One poem,
the last, remains; in which he tells how a sigh, issuing from his
heart, and guided by Love, beholds his lady in glory in the empy-
rean. The book closes with these words: -
"After this sonnet a wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw
things which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed one until I
could more worthily treat of her. And to attain to this, I study to the utmost
of my power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall please Him through
whom all things live that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to say
of her what was never said of any woman. And then, may it please Him
who is the Lord of Grace, that my soul may go to behold the glory of its
lady, namely of that blessed Beatrice, who in glory looks upon the face of
Him qui est per omnia sæcula benedictus» (who is blessed forever).
## p. 4335 (#101) ###########################################
DANTE
4335
There is nothing in the 'New Life' which indicates whether
or not Beatrice was married, or which implies that the devotion of
Dante to her was recognized by any special expression of regard on
her part. No interviews between them are recorded; no tokens of
love were exchanged. The reserve, the simple and unconscious dig-
nity of Beatrice, distinguish her no less than her beauty, her grace,
and her ineffable courtesy. The story, based upon actual experience,
is ordered not in literal conformity with fact, but according to the
ideal of the imagination; and its reality does not consist in the exact-
ness of its record of events, but in the truth of its poetic conception.
Under the narrative lies an allegory of the power of love to trans-
figure earthly things into the likeness of heavenly, and to lift the
soul from things material and transitory to things spiritual and
eternal.
While the little book exhibits many features of a literature in an
early stage of development, and many of the characteristics of a
youthful production, it is yet the first book of modern times which
has such quality as to possess perpetual contemporaneousness. It has
become in part archaic, but it does not become antiquated. It is the
first book in a modern tongue in which prose begins to have freedom
of structure, and ease of control over the resources of the language.
It shows a steady progress in Dante's mastery of literary art. The
stiffness and lack of rhythmical charm of the poems with which it
begins disappear in the later sonnets and canzoni, and before its
close it exhibits the full development of the sweet new style begun
by Dante's predecessor Guido Guinicelli, and of which the secret lay
in obedience to the dictates of nature within the heart.
The date of its compilation cannot be fixed with precision, but
was probably not far from 1295; and the words with which it closes
seem to indicate that the design of the 'Divine Comedy' had already
taken a more or less definite shape in Dante's mind.
The deepest interest of the 'New Life' is the evidence which it
affords in regard to Dante's character. The tenderness, sensitive-
ness, and delicacy of feeling, the depth of passion, the purity of
soul which are manifest in it, leave no question as to the controlling
qualities of his disposition. These qualities rest upon a foundation
of manliness, and are buttressed by strong moral principles. At the
very beginning of the book is a sentence, which shows that he had
already gained that self-control which is the prime condition of
strength and worth of character. In speaking of the power which
his imagination gave to Love to rule over him, a power that had its
source in the image of his lady, he adds, "Yet was that image of
such noble virtue that it never suffered Love to rule me without the
faithful counsel of the reason in those matters in which to listen to
## p. 4336 (#102) ###########################################
4336
DANTE
its counsel was useful. " His faculties were already disciplined by
study, and his gifts enriched with learning. He was scholar hardly less
than poet.
The range of his acquisitions was already wide, and it is
plain that he had had the best instruction which Florence could pro-
vide; and nowhere else could better have been found.
The death of Beatrice was the beginning of a new period of
Dante's self-development. So long as she lived she had led him
along toward the right way. For a time, during the first ecstasy of
grief at her loss, she still sustained him. After a while, he tells us,
his mind, which was endeavoring to heal itself, sought for comfort
in the mode which other comfortless ones had accepted for their
consolation. He read Boëthius on the Consolations of Philosophy,'
and the words of comfort in Cicero's Treatise on Friendship. ' By
these he was led to further studies of philosophy, and giving himself
with ardor to its pursuit, he devoted himself to the acquisition of the
wisdom of this earth, to the neglect, for a time, of the teachings of
Divine revelation. He entered upon paths of study which did not
lead to the higher truth, and at the same time he began to take
active part himself in the affairs of the world. He was attracted by
the allurements of life. He married; he took office. He shared in
the pleasures of the day.
to windward," and the royals were set. These brought us
up again; but the wind continuing light, the California set
hers, and it was soon evident that she was walking away from
us. Our captain then hailed and said that he should keep off
to his course; adding, "She isn't the Alert now. If I had
her in your trim she would have been out of sight by this
time. " This was good-naturedly answered from the California,
and she braced sharp up, and stood close upon the wind up
the coast; while we squared away our yards, and stood before
the wind to the
the south-southwest. The California's crew
manned her weather rigging, waved their hats in the air, and
gave us three hearty cheers, which we answered as heartily,
and the customary single cheer came back to us from over
the water. She stood on her way, doomed to eighteen months'
or two years' hard service upon that hated coast; while we
were making our way home, to which every hour and every
mile was bringing us nearer.
――――――
## p. 4314 (#77) ############################################
## p. 4314 (#78) ############################################
1440 24
ALIGHIERI DANTE.
Grosch
## p. 4314 (#79) ############################################
24
2. *1*L
14
15. .
e Prats cl
"
th
!
*། ན
1.
1.
11
A 712
i c
41, CH
11.
Suple
วิ
it
11.
1,
[^54290,00
44
11
not
41
སྤྱི་
1965
15
וי
6
i
CMON JS
***
JA SKIC
C॰&*¥
་ ་
1
NIL
17
Mage
:
""
"
12
. "ז.
## p. 4314 (#80) ############################################
224
915
38082
## p. 4315 (#81) ############################################
4315
DANTE
(1265-1321)
BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
I
O ACQUIRE a love for the best poetry, and a just understand-
ing of it, is the chief end of the study of literature; for it
is by means of poetry that the imagination is quickened,
nurtured, and invigorated, and it is only through the exercise of his
imagination that man can live a life that is in a true sense worth
living. For it is the imagination which lifts him from the petty,
transient, and physical interests that engross the greater part of his
time and thoughts in self-regarding pursuits, to the large, permanent,
and spiritual interests that ennoble his nature, and transform him
from a solitary individual into a member of the brotherhood of the
human race.
In the poet the imagination works more powerfully and consist-
ently than in other men, and thus qualifies him to become the
teacher and inspirer of his fellows. He sees men, by its means,
more clearly than they see themselves; he discloses them to them-
selves, and reveals to them their own dim ideals. He becomes the
interpreter of his age to itself; and not merely of his own age is he
the interpreter, but of man to man in all ages. For change as the
world may in outward aspect, with the rise and fall of empires,-
change as men may, from generation to generation, in knowledge,
belief, and manners,-human nature remains unalterable in its ele-
ments, unchanged from age to age; and it is human nature, under its
various guises, with which the great poets deal.
The Iliad and the Odyssey do not become antiquated to us. The
characters of Shakespeare are perpetually modern. Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, stand alone in the closeness of their relation to nature.
Each after his own manner gives us a view of life, as seen by the
poetic imagination, such as no other poet has given to us. Homer,
first of all poets, shows us individual personages sharply defined, but
in the early stages of intellectual and moral development, the first
representatives of the race at its conscious entrance upon the path of
progress, with simple motives, simple theories of existence, simple
and limited experience. He is plain and direct in the presentation
## p. 4316 (#82) ############################################
4316
DANTE
of life, and in the substance no less than in the expression of his
thought.
In Shakespeare's work the individual man is no less sharply
defined, no less true to nature, but the long procession of his per-
sonages is wholly different in effect from that of the Iliad and the
Odyssey. They have lost the simplicity of the older race; they are
the products of a longer and more varied experience; they have
become more complex. And Shakespeare is plain and direct neither
in the substance of his thought nor in the expression of it. The
world has grown older, and in the evolution of his nature man has
become conscious of the irreconcilable paradoxes of life, and more or
less aware that while he is infinite in faculty, he is also the quint-
essence of dust. But there is one essential characteristic in which
Shakespeare and Homer resemble each other as poets,—that they
both show to us the scene of life without the interference of their
own personality. Each simply holds the mirror up to nature, and
lets us see the reflection, without making comment on the show. If
there be a lesson in it we must learn it for ourselves.
Dante comes between the two, and differs more widely from each
of them than they from one another. They are primarily poets.
He is primarily a moralist who is also a poet. Of Homer the man,
and of Shakespeare the man, we know, and need to know, nothing;
it is only with them as poets that we are concerned. But it is need-
ful to know Dante as man, in order fully to appreciate him as poet.
He gives us his world not as reflection from an unconscious and
indifferent mirror, but as from a mirror that shapes and orders its
reflections for a definite end beyond that of art, and extraneous to it.
And in this lies the secret of Dante's hold upon so many and so
various minds. He is the chief poet of man as a moral being.
To understand aright the work of any great poet we must know
the conditions of his times; but this is not enough in the case of
Dante. We must know not only the conditions of the generation to
which he belonged, we must also know the specific conditions which
shaped him into the man he was, and differentiated him from his
fellows. How came he, endowed with a poetic imagination which
puts him in the same class with Homer and Shakespeare, not to be
content, like them, to give us a simple view of the phantasmagoria of
life, but eager to use the fleeting images as instruments by which to
enforce the lesson of righteousness, to set forth theory of existence
and a scheme of the universe?
The question cannot be answered without a consideration of the
change wrought in the life and thoughts of men in Europe by the
Christian doctrine as expounded and enforced by the Roman Church,
and of the simultaneous changes in outward conditions resulting from
## p. 4317 (#83) ############################################
DANTE
4317
the destruction of the ancient civilization, and the slow evolution of
the modern world as it rose from the ruins of the old. The period
which immediately preceded and followed the fall of the Roman
Empire was too disorderly, confused, and broken for men during its
course to be conscious of the directions in which they were treading.
Century after century passed without settled institutions, without
orderly language, without literature, without art. But institutions,
languages, literature and art were germinating, and before the end.
of the eleventh century clear signs of a new civilization were mani-
fest in Western Europe. The nations, distinguished by differences of
race and history, were settling down within definite geographical
limits; the various languages were shaping themselves for the uses
of intercourse and of literature; institutions accommodated to actual
needs were growing strong; here and there the social order was
becoming comparatively tranquil and secure. Progress once begun
became rapid, and the twelfth century is one of the most splendid
periods of the intellectual life of man expressing itself in an infinite
variety of noble and attractive forms. These new conditions were
most strongly marked in France: in Provence at the South, and in
and around the Île de France at the North; and from both these
regions a quickening influence diffused itself eastward into Italy.
The conditions of Italy throughout the Dark and Middle Ages
were widely different from those of other parts of Europe. Through
all the ruin and confusion of these centuries a tradition of ancient
culture and ancient power was handed down from generation to gen-
eration, strongly affecting the imagination of the Italian people,
whether recent invaders or descendants of the old population. Italy
had never had a national unity and life, and the divisions of her dif-
ferent regions remained as wide in the later as in the earlier times;
but there was one sentiment which bound all her various and con-
flicting elements in a common bond, which touched every Italian
heart and roused every Italian imagination,- the sentiment of the
imperial grandeur and authority of Rome. Shrunken, feeble, fallen
as the city was, the thought of what she had once been still occupied
the fancy of the Italian people, determined their conceptions of the
government of the world, and quickened within them a glow of patri-
otic pride. Her laws were still the main fount of whatsoever law
existed for the maintenance of public and private right; the imperial
dignity, however interrupted in transmission, however often assumed
by foreign and barbarian conquerors, was still, to the imagination,
supreme above all other earthly titles; the story of Roman deeds
was known of all men; the legends of Roman heroes were the famil-
iar tales of infancy and age. Cities that had risen since Rome fell
claimed, with pardonable falsehood, to have had their origin from her,
## p. 4318 (#84) ############################################
4318
DANTE
and their rulers adopted the designations of her consuls and her sen-
ators. The fragments of her literature that had survived the destruc-
tion of her culture were the models for the rude writers of ignorant
centuries, and her language formed the basis for the new language
which was gradually shaping itself in accordance with the slowly
growing needs of expression. The traces of her material dominion,
the ruins of her wide arch of empire, were still to be found from the
far West to the farther East, and were but the types and emblems
of her moral dominion in the law, the language, the customs, the
traditions of the different lands. Nothing in the whole course of
profane history has so affected the imaginations of men, or so influ-
enced their destinies, as the achievements and authority of Rome.
The Roman Church inherited, together with the city, the tradition
of Roman dominion over the world. Ancient Rome largely shaped
modern Christianity,- by the transmission of the idea of the author-
ity which the Empire once exerted to the Church which grew up
upon its ruins.
The tremendous drama of Roman history displayed
itself to the imagination from scene to scene, from act to act, with
completeness of poetic progress and climax,- first the growth, the
extension, the absoluteness of material supremacy, the heathen being
made the instruments of Divine power for preparing the world for
the revelation of the true God; then the tragedy of Christ's death
wrought by Roman hands, and the expiation of it in the fall of the
Roman imperial power; followed by the new era in which Rome
again was asserting herself as mistress of the world, but now with
spiritual instead of material supremacy, and with a dominion against
which the gates of hell itself should not prevail.
It was, indeed, not at once that this conception of the Church as
the inheritor of the rights of Rome to the obedience of mankind
took form. It grew slowly and against opposition. But at the end
of the eleventh century, through the genius of Pope Gregory VII. ,
the ideas hitherto disputed, of the supreme authority of the Pope
within the Church and of the supremacy of the Church over the
State, were established as the accepted ecclesiastical theory, and
adopted as the basis of the definitely organized ecclesiastical system.
Little more than a hundred years later, at the beginning of the thir-
teenth century, Innocent III. enforced the claims of the Church with
a vigor and ability hardly less than that of his great predecessor,
maintaining openly that the Pope-Pontifex Maximus — was the
vicar of God upon earth.
This theory was the logical conclusion from a long series of his-
toric premises; and resting upon a firm foundation of dogma, it was
supported by the genuine belief, no less than by the worldly inter-
ests and ambitions, of those who profited by it. The ideal it
## p. 4319 (#85) ############################################
DANTE
4319
presented was at once a simple and a noble conception,— narrow
indeed, for the ignorance of men was such that only narrow concep-
tions, in matters relating to the nature and destiny of man and the
order of the universe, were possible. But it was a theory that
offered an apparently sufficient solution of the mysteries of religion,
of the relation between God and man, between the visible creation
and the unseen world. It was a theory of a material rather than a
spiritual order: it reduced the things of the spirit into terms of the
things of the flesh. It was crude, it was easily comprehensible, it
was fitted to the mental conditions of the age.
The power which the Church claimed, and which to a large
degree it exercised over the imagination and over the conduct of the
Middle Ages, was the power which belonged to its head as the
earthly representative and vicegerent of God. No wonder that such
power was often abused, and that the corruption among the ministers
of the Church was wide-spread. Yet in spite of abuse, in spite of
corruption, the Church was the ark of civilization.
―
The religious - no less than the intellectual-life of Europe had
revived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and had displayed its
fervor in the marvels of Crusades and of church-building,— external
modes of manifesting zeal for the glory of God, and ardor for per-
sonal salvation. But with the progress of intelligence the spirit
which had found its expression in these modes of service, now, in
the thirteenth century in Italy, fired the hearts of men with an even
more intense and far more vital flame, quickening within them
sympathies which had long lain dormant, and which now at last
burst into activity in efforts and sacrifices for the relief of misery,
and for the bringing of all men within the fold of Christian brother-
hood. St. Francis and St. Dominic, in founding their orders, and
in setting an example to their brethren, only gave measure and direc-
tion to a common impulse.
Yet such were the general hardness of heart and cruelty of tem-
per which had resulted from the centuries of violence, oppression,
and suffering, out of which Italy with the rest of Europe was slowly
emerging, that the strivings of religious emotion and the efforts of
humane sympathy were less powerful to bring about an improve-
ment in social order than influences which had their root in material
conditions. Chief among these was the increasing strength of the
civic communities, through the development of industry and of com-
merce. The people of the cities, united for the protection of their
common interests, were gaining a sense of power. The little people,
as they were called,-mechanics, tradesmen, and the like,
organizing themselves, and growing strong enough to compel the
great to submit to the restrictions of a more or less orderly and
were
――――
## p. 4320 (#86) ############################################
4320
DANTE
peaceful life. In spite of the violent contentions of the great, in
spite of frequent civic uproar, of war with neighbors, of impassioned
party disputes, in spite of incessant interruptions of their tranquillity,
many of the cities of Italy were advancing in prosperity and wealth.
No one of them made more rapid and steady progress than Florence.
The history of Florence during the thirteenth century is a splendid
tale of civic energy and resolute self-confidence. The little city was
full of eager and vigorous life. Her story abounds in picturesque
incident. She had her experience of the turn of the wheel of
Fortune, being now at the summit of power in Tuscany, now in the
depths of defeat and humiliation.
The spiritual emotion, the improvement in the conditions of
society, the increase of wealth, the growth in power of the cities of
Italy, were naturally accompanied by a corresponding intellectual
development, and the thirteenth century became for Italy what the
twelfth had been for France, a period of splendid activity in the
expression of her new life. Every mode of expression in literature
and in the arts was sought and practiced, at first with feeble and
ignorant hands, but with steady gain of mastery. At the beginning
of the century the language was a mere spoken tongue, not yet
shaped for literary use. But the example of Provence was strongly
felt at the court of the Emperor Frederick II. in Sicily, and the first
half of the century was not ended before many poets were imitating
in the Italian tongue the poems of the troubadours. Form and sub-
stance were alike copied; there is scarcely a single original note; but
the practice was of service in giving suppleness to the language, in
forming it for nobler uses, and in opening the way for poetry which
should be Italian in sentiment as well as in words. At the north of
Italy the influence of the trouvères was felt in like manner. Every-
where the desire for expression was manifest. The spring had come,
the young birds had begun to twitter, but no full song was yet heard.
Love was the main theme of the poets, but it had few accents of
sincerity; the common tone was artificial, was unreal.
In the second half of the century new voices are heard, with
accents of genuine and natural feeling; the poets begin to treat the
old themes with more freshness, and to deal with religion, politics,
and morals, as well as with love. The language still possesses,
indeed, the quality of youth; it is still pliant, its forms have not
become stiffened by age, it is fit for larger use than has yet been
made of it, and lies ready and waiting, like a noble instrument, for
the hand of the master which shall draw from it its full harmonies
and reveal its latent power in the service he exacts from it.
But it was not in poetry alone that the life of Italy found expres-
sion. Before the invention of printing,- which gave to the literary
## p. 4321 (#87) ############################################
DANTE
VIII-271
4321
arts such an advantage as secured their pre-eminence,- architecture,
sculpture, and painting were hardly less important means for the ex-
pression of the ideals of the imagination and the creative energy of
man. The practice of them had never wholly ceased in Italy; but
her native artists had lost the traditions of technical skill; their work
was rude and childish. The conventional and lifeless forms of Byzan-
tine art in its decline were adopted by workmen who no longer felt
the impulse, and no longer possessed the capacity, of original design.
Venice and Pisa, early enriched by Eastern commerce, and with citi-
zens both instructed and inspired by knowledge of foreign lands, had
begun great works of building even in the eleventh century; but
these works had been designed, and mainly executed, by masters
from abroad. But now the awakened soul of Italy breathed new life
into all the arts in its efforts at self-expression. A splendid revival
began. The inspiring influence of France was felt in the arts of
construction and design as it had been felt in poetry. The magnifi-
cent display of the highest powers of the imagination and the intelli-
gence in France, the creation during the twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries of the unrivaled productions of Gothic art, stimulated and
quickened the growth of the native art of Italy. But the French
forms were seldom adopted for direct imitation, as the forms of Pro-
vençal poetry had been. The power of classic tradition was strong
enough to resist their attraction. The taste of Italy rejected the
marvels of Gothic design in favor of modes of expression inherited
from her own past, but vivified with fresh spirit, and adapted to her
new requirements. The inland cities, as they grew rich through
native industry and powerful through the organization of their citi-
zens, were stirred with rivalry to make themselves beautiful, and the
motives of religion no less than those of civic pride contributed to
their adornment. The Church was the object of interest common to
all. Piety, superstition, pride, emulation, all alike called for art in
which their spirit should be embodied. The imagination answered to
the call. The eyes of the artist were once more opened to see the
beauty of life, and his hand sought to reproduce it. The bonds
of tradition were broken. The Greek marble vase on the platform of
the Duomo at Pisa taught Niccola Pisano the right methods of sculp-
ture, and directed him to the source of his art in the study of
nature. His work was a new wonder and delight, and showed the
way along which many followed him. Painting took her lesson from
sculpture, and before the end of the century both arts had become
responsive to the demand of the time, and had entered upon that
course of triumph which was not to end till, three centuries later,
chisel and brush dropped from hands enfeebled in the general decline
of national vigor, and incapable of resistance to the tyrannous and
exclusive autocracy of the printed page.
## p. 4322 (#88) ############################################
4322
DANTE
But it was not only the new birth of sentiment and emotion
which quickened these arts: it was also the aroused curiosity of men
concerning themselves, their history, and the earth. They felt their
own ignorance. The vast region of the unknown, which encircled
with its immeasurable spaces the little tract of the known world,
appealed to their fancy and their spirit of enterprise, with its bound-
less promise and its innumerable allurements to adventure. Learn-
ing, long confined and starved in the cell of the monk, was coming
out into the open world, and was gathering fresh stores alike from
the past and the present. The treasures of the wisdom and knowl-
edge of the Greeks were eagerly sought, especially in translations
of Aristotle,-translations which, though imperfect indeed, and dis-
figured by numberless misinterpretations and mistakes, nevertheless
contained a body of instruction invaluable as a guide and stimulant
to the awakened intelligence. Encyclopedic compends of knowledge
put at the disposition of students all that was known or fancied in
the various fields of science. The division between knowledge and
belief was not sharply drawn, and the wonders of legend and of
fable were accepted with as ready a faith as the actual facts of
observation and of experience. Travelers for gain or for adventure,
and missionaries for the sake of religion, were venturing to lands
hitherto unvisited. The growth of knowledge, small as it was com-
pared with later increase, widened thought and deepened life. The
increase of thought strengthened the faculties of the mind. Man
becomes more truly man in proportion to what he knows, and one of
the most striking and characteristic features of this great century is
the advance of man through increase of knowledge out of childish-
ness towards maturity. The insoluble problems which had been
discussed with astonishing acuteness by the schoolmen of the preced-
ing generation were giving place to a philosophy of more immediate
application to the conduct and discipline of life. The Summa Theo-
logica of St. Thomas Aquinas not only treated with incomparable
logic the vexed questions of scholastic philosophy, but brought all
the resources of a noble and well-trained intelligence and of a fine
moral sense to the study and determination of the order and govern-
ment of the universe, and of the nature and destiny of man.
The scope of learning remained, indeed, at the end of the cen-
tury, narrow in its range. The little tract of truth which men had
acquired lay encompassed by ignorance, like a scant garden-plot sur-
rounded by a high wall. But here and there the wall was broken
through, and paths were leading out into wider fields to be won for
culture, or into deserts wider still, in which the wanderers should
perish.
But as yet there was no comprehensive and philosophic grasp of
the new conditions in their total significance; no harmonizing of
## p. 4323 (#89) ############################################
DANTE
4323
their various elements into one consistent scheme of human life; no
criticism of the new life as a whole. For this task was required not
only acquaintance with the whole range of existing knowledge, by
which the conceptions of men in regard to themselves and the uni-
verse were determined, but also a profound view of the meaning of
life itself, and an imaginative insight into the nature of man. A
mere image of the drama of life as presented to the eye would not
suffice. The meaning of it would be lost in the confusion and multi-
plicity of the scene. The only possible explanation and reconcile-
ment of its aspects lay in the universal application to them of the
moral law, and in the exhibition of man as a spiritual and immortal
being for whom this world was but the first stage of existence.
was the task undertaken and accomplished by Dante.
This
II
Of the events in Dante's life few are precisely ascertained, but of
its general course enough is known, either from his own statements
or from external testimony, to show the essential relations between
his life and his work, and the influence of his experience upon his
convictions and character. Most of the biographies of him are un-
trustworthy, being largely built up upon a foundation of inferences.
and suppositions, and often filled out with traditions and stories of
which the greater part are certainly false and few have a likelihood
of truth. The only strictly contemporary account of him is that
given by the excellent Chronicler of Florence, Giovanni Villani, a
man of weight and judgment, who in the ninth book of his Chron-
icle, under the year 1321, recording Dante's death, adds a brief nar-
rative of his life and works; because, as he says, «< on account of the
virtues and knowledge and worth of so great a citizen, it seems to
us to be fitting to give a perpetual memorial of him in this our
chronicle, although the noble works left by him in writing afford a
true testimonial to him, and honorable fame to our city. " "Dante
was," says Villani, an honorable and ancient citizen of Florence, of
the gate of San Piero, and our neighbor. " "He was a great master
in almost every branch of knowledge, although he was a layman; he
was a supreme poet and philosopher, and a perfect rhetorician alike
in prose and verse, as well as a most noble orator in public speech,
supreme in rhyme, with the most polished and beautiful style that
had ever been in our language.
Because of his knowledge
he was somewhat presumptuous, disdainful, and haughty; and, as it
were after the manner of a philosopher, having little graciousness,
he knew not well to bear himself with common people (conversare
con laici). "
«<
## p. 4324 (#90) ############################################
DANTE
4324
癞
Dante was born in Florence, in May or June 1265. Of his family
little is positively known. * It was not among the nobles of the city,
but it had place among the well-to-do citizens who formed the body
of the State and the main support of the Guelf party. Of Dante's
early years, and the course of his education, nothing is known save
what he himself tells us in his various writings or what may be
inferred from them. Lionardo Bruni, eminent as an historian and as
a public man, who wrote a Life of Dante about a hundred years
after his death, cites a letter of which we have no other knowledge,
in which, if the letter be genuine, the poet says that he took part in
the battle of Campaldino, fought in June 1289. The words are:-" At
the battle of Campaldino, in which the Ghibelline party was almost
all slain and undone, I found myself not a child in arms, and I
experienced great fear, and finally the greatest joy, because of the
shifting fortunes of the fight. " It seems likely that Dante was pres-
ent, probably under arms, in the later part of the same summer, at
the surrender to the Florentines of the Pisan stronghold of Caprona,
where, he says ('Inferno,' xxi. 94-96), “I saw the foot soldiers afraid,
who came out under compact from Caprona, seeing themselves among
so many enemies. ”
Years passed before any other event in Dante's life is noted with
a certain date. An imperfect record preserved in the Florentine
archives mentions his taking part in a discussion in the so-called
Council of a Hundred Men, on the 5th of June, 1296. This is of import-
ance as indicating that he had before this time become a member of
one of the twelve Arts,-enrollment in one of which was required for
the acquisition of the right to exercise political functions in the
State, and also as indicating that he had a place in the chief of
those councils by which public measures were discussed and decided.
The Art of which he was a member was that of the physicians and
druggists (medici e speziali), an Art whose dealings included commerce
in many of the products of the East.
Not far from this time, but whether before or after 1296 is uncer-
tain, he married. His wife was Gemma dei Donati. The Donati
were a powerful family among the grandi of the city, and played a
leading part in the stormy life of Florence. Of Gemma nothing is
known but her marriage.
Between 1297 and 1299, Dante, together with his brother Fran-
cesco, as appears from existing documentary evidence, were borrowers
of considerable sums of money; and the largest of the debts thus
*In the 'Paradiso (canto xv. ) he introduces his great-great-grandfather
Cacciaguida, who tells of himself that he followed the Emperor Conrad to
fight against the Mohammedans, was made a knight by him, and was slain in
the war.
## p. 4325 (#91) ############################################
DANTE
4325
incurred seem not to have been discharged till 1332, eleven years after
his death, when they were paid by his sons Jacopo and Pietro.
In May 1299 he was sent as envoy from Florence to the little, not
very distant, city of San Gemignano, to urge its community to take
part in a general council of the Guelf communes of Tuscany.
In the next year, 1300, he was elected one of the six priors of
Florence, to hold office from the 15th of June to the 15th of August.
The priors, together with the "gonfalonier of justice" (who had com-
mand of the body of one thousand men who stood at their service),
formed the chief magistracy of the city. Florence had such jealousy
of its rulers that the priors held office but two months, so that in
the course of each year thirty-six of the citizens were elected to this
magistracy. The outgoing priors, associated with twelve of the lead-
ing citizens, two from each of the sestieri or wards of the city, chose
their successors. Neither continuity nor steady vigor of policy was
possible with an administration so shifting and of such varied com-
position, which by its very constitution was exposed at all times to
intrigue and to attack.
It was no wonder that Florence lay open to
the reproach that her counsels were such that what she spun in
October did not reach to mid-November (Purgatory,' vi. 142-144).
His election to the priorate was the most important event in Dante's
public life. "All my ills and all my troubles," he declared, "had
occasion and beginning from my misfortunate election to the priorate,
of which, though I was not worthy in respect of wisdom, yet I was
not unworthy in fidelity and in age. "*
The year 1300 was disastrous not only for Dante but for Florence.
She was, at the end of the thirteenth century, by far the most flour-
ishing and powerful city of Tuscany, full of vitality and energy, and
beautiful as she was strong. She was not free from civil discord,
but the predominance of the Guelf party was so complete within her
walls that she suffered little from the strife between Guelf and
Ghibelline, which for almost a century had divided Italy into two
hostile camps. In the main the Guelf party was that of the common
people and the industrious classes, and in general it afforded support
to the Papacy as against the Empire, while it received, in return,
support from the popes. The Ghibellines, on the other hand, were
mainly of the noble class, and maintainers of the Empire. The
growth of the industry and commerce of Florence in the last half of
the century had resulted in the establishment of the popular power,
and in the suppression of the Ghibelline interest. But a bitter quar-
rel broke out in one of the great families in the neighboring Guelf
city of Pistoia, a quarrel which raged so furiously that Florence
* From the letter already referred to, cited by Lionardo Bruni.
## p. 4326 (#92) ############################################
4326
DANTE
feared that it would result in the gain of power by the Ghibel-
lines, and she adopted the fatal policy of compelling the heads of the
contending factions to take up their residence within her walls. The
result was that she herself became the seat of discord. Each of the
two factions found ardent adherents, and, adopting the names by
which they had been distinguished in Pistoia, Florence was almost
instantly ablaze with the passionate quarrel between the Whites and
the Blacks (Bianchi and Neri). The flames burned so high that the
Pope, Boniface VIII. , intervened to quench them. His intervention
was vain.
worse.
It was just at this time that Dante became prior. The need of
action to restore peace to the city was imperative, and the priors
took the step of banishing the leaders of both divisions. Among
those of the Bianchi was Dante's own nearest friend, Guido Caval-
cante. The measure was insufficient to secure tranquillity and order.
The city was in constant tumult; its conditions went from bad to
But in spite of civil broils, common affairs must still be
attended to, and from a document preserved in the Archives at
Florence we learn that on the 28th April, 1301, Dante was appointed
superintendent, without salary, of works undertaken for the widening,
straightening, and paving of the street of San Procolo and making it
safe for travel. On the 13th of the same month he took part in a
discussion, in the Council of the Heads of the twelve greater Arts, as
to the mode of procedure in the election of future priors. On the
18th of June, in the Council of the Hundred Men, he advised against
providing the Pope with a force of one hundred men which had been
asked for; and again in September of the same year there is record,
for the last time, of his taking part in the Council, in a discussion
in regard "to the conservation of the Ordinances of Justice and the
Statutes of the People. "
These notices of the part taken by Dante in public affairs seem
at first sight comparatively slight and unimportant; but were one
constructing an ideal biography of him, it would be hard to devise
records more appropriate to the character and principles of the man
as they appear from his writings. The sense of the duty of the
individual to the community of which he forms a part was one
of his strongest convictions; and his being put in charge of the
opening of the street of San Procolo, and making it safe for travel,
"eo quod popularis comitatus absque strepitu et briga magnatum et
potentum possunt secure venire ad dominos priores et vexilliferum
justitiæ cum expedit" (so that the common people may, without uproar
and harassing of magnates and mighty men, have access whenever it
be desirable to the Lord Priors and the Standard-Bearer of Justice),
affords a comment on his own criticism of his fellow-citizens, whose
## p. 4327 (#93) ############################################
DANTE
4327
disposition to shirk the burden of public duty is more than once
the subject of his satire. "Many refuse the common burden, but
thy people, my Florence, eagerly replies without being called on,
and cries, I load myself» (Purgatory,' vi. 133-135). His counsel
against providing the Pope with troops was in conformity with
his fixed political conviction that the function of the Papacy was to
be confined to the spiritual government of mankind; and nothing
could be more striking, as a chance incident, than that the last
occasion on which he, whose heart was set on justice, took part in
the counsels of his city, should have been for the discussion of the
means for "the conservation of the ordinances of justice and the
statutes of the people. "
In the course of events in 1300 and 1301 the Bianchi proved the
stronger of the two factions by which the city was divided, they
resisted with success the efforts of the Pope in support of their
rivals, and they were charged by their enemies with intent to restore
the rule of the city to the Ghibellines. While affairs were in this
state, Charles of Valois, brother to the King of France, Philip the
Fair, was passing through Italy with a troop of horsemen to join
Charles II. of Naples,* in the attempt to regain Sicily from the hands
of Frederic of Aragon. The Pope favored the expedition, and held
out flattering promises to Charles. The latter reached Anagni, where
Boniface was residing, in September 1301. Here it was arranged
that before proceeding to Sicily, Charles should undertake to reduce
to obedience the refractory opponents of the Pope in Tuscany. The
title of the Pacifier of Tuscany was bestowed on him, and he moved
toward Florence with his own troop and a considerable additional
force of men-at-arms. He was met on his way by deputies from
Florence, to whom he made fair promises; and trusting to his good
faith, the Florentines opened their gates to him and he entered the
city on All Saints' Day (November 1st), 1301.
Charles had hardly established himself in his quarters before he
cast his pledges to the wind. The exiled Neri, with his connivance,
broke into the city, and for six days worked their will upon their
enemies, slaying many of them, pillaging and burning their houses,
while Charles looked on with apparent unconcern at the wide-spread
ruin and devastation. New priors, all of them from the party of the
Neri, entered upon office in mid-November, and a new Podestà,
Cante dei Gabrielli of Agobbio, was charged with the administration
of justice. The persecution of the Bianchi was carried on with con-
sistent thoroughness: many were imprisoned, many fined, Charles
* Charles II. of Naples was the cousin of Philip III. , the Bold, of France,
the father of Charles of Valois; and in 1290 Charles of Valois had married
his daughter.
## p. 4328 (#94) ############################################
4328
DANTE
sharing in the sums exacted from them. On the 27th of January,
1302, a decree was issued by the Podestà condemning five persons,
one of whom was Dante, to fine and banishment on account of
crimes alleged to have been committed by them while holding office
as priors. "According to public report," said the decree, "they com-
mitted barratry, sought illicit gains, and practiced unjust extortions
of money or goods. " These general charges are set forth with elab-
orate legal phraseology, and with much repetition of phrase, but
without statement of specific instances. The most important of them
are that the accused had spent money of the commune in opposing
the Pope, in resistance to the coming of Charles of Valois, and
against the peace of the city and the Guelf party; that they had
promoted discord in the city of Pistoia, and had caused the expulsion
from that city of the Neri, the faithful adherents of the Holy Roman
Church; and that they had caused Pistoia to break its union with
Florence, and to refuse subjection to the Church and to Charles the
Pacificator of Tuscany. These being the charges, the decree pro-
ceeded to declare that the accused, having been summoned to appear
within a fixed time before the Podestà and his court to make their
defense, under penalty for non-appearance of five thousand florins
each, and having failed to do so, were now condemned to pay this sum
and to restore their illicit gains; and if this were not done within
three days from the publication of this sentence against them, all their
possessions (bona) should be seized and destroyed; and should they
make the required payment, they were nevertheless to stand ban-
ished from Tuscany for two years; and for perpetual memory of
their misdeeds their names were to be inscribed in the Statutes of
the People, and as swindlers and barrators they were never to hold
office or benefice within the city or district of Florence.
Six weeks later, on the 10th of March, another decree of the
Podestà was published, declaring the five citizens named in the pre-
ceding decree, together with ten others, to have practically confessed
their guilt by their contumacy in non-appearance when summoned,
and condemning them, if at any time any one of them should come
into the power of Florence, to be burned to death (" talis perveniens
igne comburatur sic quod moriatur "). *
From this time forth till his death Dante was
an exile. The
character of the decrees is such that the charges brought against him
have no force, and leave no suspicion resting upon his actions as an
officer of the State. They are the outcome and expression of the
*These decrees and the other public documents relating to Dante are to be
found in various publications. They have all been collected and edited by
Professor George R. Carpenter, in the tenth and eleventh Annual Reports of
the Dante Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1891, 1892.
## p. 4329 (#95) ############################################
DANTE
4329
bitterness of party rage, and they testify clearly only to his having
been one of the leaders of the parties opposed to the pretensions of
the Pope, and desirous to maintain the freedom of Florence from
foreign intervention.
In April Charles left Florence, "having finished," says Villani, the
eye-witness of these events, "that for which he had come, namely,
under pretext of peace, having driven the White party from Flor-
ence; but from this proceeded many calamities and dangers to our
city. "
The course of Dante's external life in exile is hardly less obscure
than that of his early days. Much concerning it may be inferred
with some degree of probability from passages in his own writ-
ings, or from what is reported by others; but of actual certain facts
there are few. For a time he seems to have remained with his com-
panions in exile, of whom there were hundreds, but he soon sep-
arated himself from them in grave dissatisfaction, making a party by
himself (Paradiso,' xvii. 69), and found shelter at the court of the
Scaligeri at Verona. In August 1306 he was among the witnesses
to a contract at Padua. In October of the same year he was with
Franceschino, Marchese Malespina, in the district called the Luni-
giana, and empowered by him as his special procurator and envoy to
establish the terms of peace for him and his brothers with the Bishop
of Luni. His gratitude to the Malespini for their hospitality and
good-will toward him is proved by one of the most splendid compli-
ments ever paid in verse or prose, the magnificent eulogium of this
great and powerful house with which the eighth canto of the 'Purga-
tory' closes. How long Dante remained with the Malespini, and
whither he went after leaving them, is unknown. At some period of
his exile he was at Lucca (Purgatorio,' xxiv. 45); Villani states that
he was at Bologna, and afterwards at Paris, and in many parts of
the world. He wandered far and wide in Italy, and it may well be
that in the course of his years of exile he went to Paris, drawn
thither by the opportunities of learning which the University afforded;
but nothing is known definitely of his going.
In 1311 the mists which obscure the greater part of Dante's life
in exile are dispelled for a moment, by three letters of unquestioned
authenticity, and we gain a clear view of the poet. In 1310 Henry
of Luxemburg, a man who touched the imagination of his contempo-
raries by his striking presence and chivalric accomplishments as well
as by his high character and generous aims, "a man just, religious,
and strenuous in arms," having been elected Emperor, as Henry VII. ,
prepared to enter Italy, with intent to confirm the imperial rights
and to restore order to the distracted land. The Pope, Clement V. ,
favored his coming, and the prospect opened by it was hailed not
## p. 4330 (#96) ############################################
4330
DANTE
only by the Ghibellines with joy, but by a large part of the Guelfs
as well; with the hope that the long discord and confusion, from
which all had suffered, might be brought to end and give place to
tranquillity and justice. Dante exulted in this new hope; and on the
coming of the Emperor, late in 1310, he addressed an animated
appeal to the rulers and people of Italy, exhorting them in impas-
sioned words to rise up and do reverence to him whom the Lord of
heaven and earth had ordained for their king. "Behold, now is the
accepted time; rejoice, O Italy, dry thy tears; efface, O most beauti-
ful, the traces of mourning; for he is at hand who shall deliver
thee. "
The first welcome of Henry was ardent, and with fair auspices he
assumed at Milan, in January 1311, the Iron Crown, the crown of the
King of Italy. Here at Milan Dante presented himself, and here with
full heart he did homage upon his knees to the Emperor. But the
popular welcome proved hollow; the illusions of hope speedily began
to vanish; revolt broke out in many cities of Lombardy; Florence
remained obdurate, and with great preparations for resistance put
herself at the head of the enemies of the Emperor. Dante, disap-
pointed and indignant, could not keep silence. He wrote a letter
headed "Dante Alaghieri, a Florentine and undeservedly in exile, to
the most wicked Florentines within the city. " It begins with calm
and eloquent words in regard to the divine foundation of the impe-
rial power, and to the sufferings of Italy due to her having been left
without its control to her own undivided will. Then it breaks forth
in passionate denunciation of Florence for her impious arrogance in
venturing to rise up in mad rebellion against the minister of God;
and, warning her of the calamities which her blind obstinacy is pre-
paring for her, it closes with threats of her impending ruin and
desolation. This letter is dated from the springs of the Arno, on
the 31st of March.
The growing force of the opposition which he encountered delayed
the progress of Henry. Dante, impatient of delay, eager to see the
accomplishment of his hope, on the 16th of April addressed Henry
himself in a letter of exalted prophetic exhortation, full of Biblical
language, and of illustrations drawn from sacred and profane story,
urging him not to tarry, but trusting in God, to go out to meet and
to slay the Goliath that stood against him. "Then the Philistines
will flee, and Israel will be delivered, and we, exiles in Babylon, who
groan as we remember the holy Jerusalem, shall then, as citizens
breathing in peace, recall in joy the miseries of confusion. " But
all was in vain. The drama which had opened with such brilliant
expectations was advancing to a tragic close. Italy became more
confused and distracted than ever. One sad event followed after
## p. 4331 (#97) ############################################
DANTE
4331
another. In May the brother of the Emperor fell at the siege of
Brescia; in September his dearly loved wife Margarita, "a holy and
good woman," died at Genoa. The forces hostile to him grew more
and more formidable. He succeeded however in entering Rome in
May 1312, but his enemies held half of the city, and the streets
became the scene of bloody battles; St. Peter's was closed to him,
and Henry, worn and disheartened and in peril, was compelled to
submit to be ingloriously crowned at St. John Lateran. With dimin-
ished strength and with loss of influence he withdrew to Tuscany,
and laid ineffectual siege to Florence. Month after month dragged
along with miserable continuance of futile war. In the summer of
1313, collecting all his forces, Henry prepared to move southward
against the King of Naples. But he was seized with illness, and on
the 24th of August he died at Buonconvento, not far from Siena.
With his death died the hope of union and of peace for Italy. His
work, undertaken with high purpose and courage, had wholly failed.
He had come to set Italy straight before she was ready (Paradiso,'
xxxi. 137). The clouds darkened over her. For Dante the cup of
bitterness overflowed.
How Dante was busied, where he was abiding, during the last
two years of Henry's stay in Italy, we have no knowledge. One
striking fact relating to him is all that is recorded. In the summer
of 1311 the Guelfs in Florence, in order to strengthen themselves
against the Emperor, determined to relieve from ban and to recall
from exile many of their banished fellow-citizens, confident that on
returning home they would strengthen the city in its resistance
against the Emperor. But to the general amnesty which was issued
on the 2d of September there were large exceptions; and impress-
ive evidence of the multitude of the exiles is afforded by the fact
that more than a thousand were expressly excluded from the benefit
of pardon, and were to remain banished and condemned as before.
In the list of those thus still regarded as enemies of Florence stands
the name of Dante.
The death of the Emperor was followed eight months later by
that of the Pope, Clement V. , under whom the papal throne had
been removed from Rome to Avignon. There seemed a chance, if
but feeble, that a new pope might restore the Church to the city
which was its proper home, and thus at least one of the wounds of
Italy be healed. The Conclave was bitterly divided; month after
month went by without a choice, the fate of the Church and of Italy
hanging uncertain in the balance. Dante, in whom religion and
patriotism combined as a single passion, saw with grief that the
return of the Church to Italy was likely to be lost through the
selfishness, the jealousies, and the avarice of her chief prelates;
## p. 4332 (#98) ############################################
4332
DANTE
and under the impulse of the deepest feeling he addressed a letter
of remonstrance, reproach, and exhortation to the Italian cardinals,
who formed but a small minority in the Conclave, but who might
by union and persistence still secure the election of a pope favorable
to the return. This letter is full of a noble but too vehement zeal.
"It is for you, being one at heart, to fight manfully for the Bride of
Christ; for the seat of the Bride, which is Rome; for our Italy, and
in a word, for the whole commonwealth of pilgrims upon earth. "
But words were in vain; and after a struggle kept up for two years
and three months, a pope was at last elected who was to fix the
seat of the Papacy only the more firmly at Avignon. Once more
Dante had to bear the pain of disappointment of hopes in which
selfishness had no part.
And now for years he disappears from sight. What his life was
he tells in a most touching passage near the beginning of his 'Con-
vito:-"From the time when it pleased the citizens of Florence, the
fairest and most famous daughter of Rome, to cast me out from her
sweetest bosom (in which I had been born and nourished even to
the summit of my life, and in which, at good peace with them, I
desire with all my heart to repose my weary soul, and to end the
time which is allotted to me), through almost all the regions to
which our tongue extends I have gone a pilgrim, almost a beggar,
displaying against my will the wound of fortune, which is wont often
to be imputed unjustly to [the discredit of] him who is wounded.
Truly I have been a bark without sail and without rudder, borne to
divers ports and bays and shores by that dry wind which grievous
poverty breathes forth, and I have appeared mean in the eyes of many
who perchance, through some report, had imagined me in other
form; and not only has my person been lowered in their sight, but
every work of mine, whether done or to be done, has been held in
less esteem. "
Once more, and for the last time, during these wanderings he
heard the voice of Florence addressed to him, and still in anger. A
decree was issued* on the 6th of November, 1315, renewing the con-
demnation and banishment of numerous citizens, denounced as Ghibel-
lines and rebels, including among them Dante Aldighieri and his sons.
The persons named in this decree are charged with contumacy, and
with the commission of ill deeds against the good state of the Com-
mune of Florence and the Guelf party; and it is ordered that "if any
*This decree was pronounced in a General Council of the Commune by
the Vicar of King Robert of Naples, into whose hands the Florentines
had given themselves in 1313 for a term of five years, -extended after-
wards to eight,- with the hope that by his authority order might be
preserved within the city.
## p. 4333 (#99) ############################################
DANTE
4333
of them shall fall into the power of the Commune he shall be taken
to the place of Justice and there be beheaded. " The motive is
unknown which led to the inclusion in this decree of the sons of
Dante, of whom there were two, now youths respectively a little
more or a little less than twenty years old. *
It is probable that the last years of Dante's life were passed in
Ravenna, under the protection of Guido da Polenta, lord of the city.
It was here that he died, on September 14th, 1321. His two sons
were with him, and probably also his daughter Beatrice. He was in
his fifty-seventh year when he went from suffering and from exile to
peace (Paradiso,' x. 128).
Such are the few absolute facts known concerning the external
events of Dante's life. A multitude of statements, often with much
circumstantial detail, concerning other incidents, have been made by
his biographers; a few rest upon a foundation of probability, but the
mass are guess-work. There is no need to report them; for small as
the sum of our actual knowledge is, it is enough for defining the field
within which his spiritual life was enacted, and for showing the con-
ditions under which his work was done, and by which its character
was largely determined.
III
No poet has recorded his own inner life more fully or with greater
sincerity than Dante. All his more important writings have essen-
tially the character of a spiritual autobiography, extending from his
boyhood to his latest years. Their quality and worth as works of
literature are largely dependent upon their quality and interest as
revelations of the nature of their writer. Their main significance lies
in this double character.
The earliest of them is the 'Vita Nuova,' or New Life. It is the
narrative in prose and verse of the beginning and course of the love
which made life new for him in his youth, and which became the
permanent inspiration of his later years, and the bond of union for
him between earth and heaven, between the actual and the ideal,
between the human and the divine. The little book begins with an
account of the boy's first meeting, when he was nine years old, with
* Among the letters ascribed to Dante is one, much noted, in reply to a
letter from a friend in Florence, in regard to terms of absolution on which he
might secure his re-admission to Florence. It is of very doubtful authenticity.
It has no external evidence to support it, and the internal evidence of its
rhetorical form and sentimental tone is all against it. It belongs in the same
class with the famous letter of Fra Ilario, and like that, seems not unlikely
to have been an invention of Boccaccio's.
## p. 4334 (#100) ###########################################
4334
DANTE
a little maiden about a year younger, who so touched his heart that
from that time forward Love lorded it over his soul. She was called
Beatrice; but whether this was her true name, or whether, because
of its significance of blessing, it was assigned to her as appropriate to
her nature, is left in doubt. Who her parents were, and what were
the events of her life, are also uncertain; though Boccaccio, who,
some thirty years after Dante's death, wrote a biography of the poet
in which fact and fancy are inextricably intermingled, reports that
he had it upon good authority that she was the daughter of Folco
Portinari, and became the wife of Simone de' Bardi. So far as
Dante's relation to her is concerned, these matters are of no concern.
Just nine years after their first meeting, years during which Dante
says he had often seen her, and her image had stayed constantly
with him, the lady of his love saluted him with such virtue that he
seemed to see all the bounds of bliss, and having already recognized
in himself the art of discoursing in rhyme, he made a sonnet in
which he set forth a vision which had come to him after receiving
his lady's salute. This sonnet has a twofold interest, as being the
earliest of Dante's poetic composition preserved to us, and as describ-
ing a vision which connects it in motive with the vision of the
'Divine Comedy. ' It is the poem of a 'prentice hand not yet master
of its craft, and neither in manner nor in conception has it any
marked distinction from the work of his predecessors and contem-
poraries. The narrative of the first incidents of his love forms the
subject of the first part of the little book, consisting of ten poems
and the prose comment upon them; then the poet takes up a new
theme and devotes ten poems to the praise of his lady. The last of
them is interrupted by her death, which took place on the 9th of
June, 1290, when Dante was twenty-five years old. Then he takes
up another new theme, and the next ten poems are devoted to his
grief, to an episode of temporary unfaithfulness to the memory of
Beatrice, and to the revival of fidelity of love for her.
One poem,
the last, remains; in which he tells how a sigh, issuing from his
heart, and guided by Love, beholds his lady in glory in the empy-
rean. The book closes with these words: -
"After this sonnet a wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw
things which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed one until I
could more worthily treat of her. And to attain to this, I study to the utmost
of my power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall please Him through
whom all things live that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to say
of her what was never said of any woman. And then, may it please Him
who is the Lord of Grace, that my soul may go to behold the glory of its
lady, namely of that blessed Beatrice, who in glory looks upon the face of
Him qui est per omnia sæcula benedictus» (who is blessed forever).
## p. 4335 (#101) ###########################################
DANTE
4335
There is nothing in the 'New Life' which indicates whether
or not Beatrice was married, or which implies that the devotion of
Dante to her was recognized by any special expression of regard on
her part. No interviews between them are recorded; no tokens of
love were exchanged. The reserve, the simple and unconscious dig-
nity of Beatrice, distinguish her no less than her beauty, her grace,
and her ineffable courtesy. The story, based upon actual experience,
is ordered not in literal conformity with fact, but according to the
ideal of the imagination; and its reality does not consist in the exact-
ness of its record of events, but in the truth of its poetic conception.
Under the narrative lies an allegory of the power of love to trans-
figure earthly things into the likeness of heavenly, and to lift the
soul from things material and transitory to things spiritual and
eternal.
While the little book exhibits many features of a literature in an
early stage of development, and many of the characteristics of a
youthful production, it is yet the first book of modern times which
has such quality as to possess perpetual contemporaneousness. It has
become in part archaic, but it does not become antiquated. It is the
first book in a modern tongue in which prose begins to have freedom
of structure, and ease of control over the resources of the language.
It shows a steady progress in Dante's mastery of literary art. The
stiffness and lack of rhythmical charm of the poems with which it
begins disappear in the later sonnets and canzoni, and before its
close it exhibits the full development of the sweet new style begun
by Dante's predecessor Guido Guinicelli, and of which the secret lay
in obedience to the dictates of nature within the heart.
The date of its compilation cannot be fixed with precision, but
was probably not far from 1295; and the words with which it closes
seem to indicate that the design of the 'Divine Comedy' had already
taken a more or less definite shape in Dante's mind.
The deepest interest of the 'New Life' is the evidence which it
affords in regard to Dante's character. The tenderness, sensitive-
ness, and delicacy of feeling, the depth of passion, the purity of
soul which are manifest in it, leave no question as to the controlling
qualities of his disposition. These qualities rest upon a foundation
of manliness, and are buttressed by strong moral principles. At the
very beginning of the book is a sentence, which shows that he had
already gained that self-control which is the prime condition of
strength and worth of character. In speaking of the power which
his imagination gave to Love to rule over him, a power that had its
source in the image of his lady, he adds, "Yet was that image of
such noble virtue that it never suffered Love to rule me without the
faithful counsel of the reason in those matters in which to listen to
## p. 4336 (#102) ###########################################
4336
DANTE
its counsel was useful. " His faculties were already disciplined by
study, and his gifts enriched with learning. He was scholar hardly less
than poet.
The range of his acquisitions was already wide, and it is
plain that he had had the best instruction which Florence could pro-
vide; and nowhere else could better have been found.
The death of Beatrice was the beginning of a new period of
Dante's self-development. So long as she lived she had led him
along toward the right way. For a time, during the first ecstasy of
grief at her loss, she still sustained him. After a while, he tells us,
his mind, which was endeavoring to heal itself, sought for comfort
in the mode which other comfortless ones had accepted for their
consolation. He read Boëthius on the Consolations of Philosophy,'
and the words of comfort in Cicero's Treatise on Friendship. ' By
these he was led to further studies of philosophy, and giving himself
with ardor to its pursuit, he devoted himself to the acquisition of the
wisdom of this earth, to the neglect, for a time, of the teachings of
Divine revelation. He entered upon paths of study which did not
lead to the higher truth, and at the same time he began to take
active part himself in the affairs of the world. He was attracted by
the allurements of life. He married; he took office. He shared in
the pleasures of the day.
