Sim .DANTE, PHILOSOPHER, PATRIOT, AND POET. WITH AN ANALYSIS OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA, ITS PLOT AND EPISODES. By VINCENZO BOTTA " Onorate I'altissimo poeta." — Inferno^ iv. NEW YOR K: CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 124 GRAND STREET. • • " .• ••• _•.•••• • • >.f V- ;••: : 'It : •. {b i4Sc^i^^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, By VINCENZO BOTTA, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. C. A. ALVOED, ELECTKOTYPEK AND PEINTEE. All' Italia, CHE NELLA COMMEMORAZIONE DEL SESTO CENTENARIO DALLA NASCITA Di Dante Allighieri CELEBRA IL PROPRIO RINASCIMENTO ALLA VITA DI NAZIONE, L'AUTORE, PARTECIPANDO ALLA COMUNE ESULTANZA, DEDICA quest' OpERA IN umile tributo di DEVOZIONE. New York, il Maggio del 1865. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arGhive.org/details/danteasphilosophOObottrich TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction.— The Age of Dante.— Guelphs and Ghlbelins.— The ^ Influence of Dante on the Progress of Italian NationaUty 1-13 / His Birth and Ancestors " ^^ His Early Love.— The "Vita Nuova."— Beatrice, a Symbolic . Personification ^ ^ /his Early Education.— Philosophic Education.— The "Convito." ^k— His Philosophy ^4^-41 Dante as a Naturalist •4--5» His Patriotism.— The Florentine Constitution.— Dante enters Public Life.— Early Change in his Political Views 5^-53 > His Political System, combining Unity of Government with Na- tional Liberties.— "De Monarchia."— « De Vulgari Eloquio."— The Principle of Nationality "• 53" 4 The Papacy.— Its History and its Policy.— Dante opposes the Pa- pacy as a Political Power.— He opposes it also as a Spiritual Sove- reignty.- Rossetti's Theory.— Dante's Religious Ideas 65-75 Dante as the Chief Magistrate of the Florentine Republic.—' The Bianchi and the Neri.— Vieri dei Cerchi.— Corso Donati.— A Dinner-Party.— Public Disturbances.— A Bold Stroke of Policy.— New Complications.— Dante goes to Rome, as an Ambassador of the Republic— Treachery of Pope Boniface VIII.— The Neri in Power 75-84 Dante is condemned to Exile.— His Efforts to return to Florence. — Dante not a Partisan 84-87 His Wanderings through the Country.— A Circumstance which induces him to continue his Poem, which he had begun before his Exile.— Gemma, his Wife ...87-90 viii T'able of Contents. PAGE Hb Visit to Monte Corvo, and his Interview with Fra Ilario. — His Residence in Paris 91-93 The Emperor Henry VII. — Dante's Hopes revive. — Florence plots against the Emperor. — Indignation of the Poet. — Dante in Genoa, then in Pisa. — The Emperor before Florence. — A Charge contra- dicted. — The Fleet of Italy 93-102 Dante at the Court of Uguccione della Faggiuola, in Pisa and in Lucca. — At the Court of Can Grande della Scala, at Verona 102-103 His Sufferings in Exile. — His Longing to return. — His Refusal of an Amnesty. — New Causes of his Dissatisfaction 103— 109 He goes to Ravenna, at the Court of the Polentas. — He is kindly received. — He is sent as an Ambassador to Venice. — His Disap- pointment 109-111 H:s Death. — His Funeral. — His Monument at Ravenna ixi-113 His Portrait by Giotto. — Other Early Portraits of the Poet 114-116 The " DnriNA Commedia." — Its Mythologic Foundation. — Its Alle- u gone Character. — The Protagonist of the Poem. — Its Unity. — The Predominance of the Individuality of the Poet. — The Universality of the Poem. — The Human Type, as portrayed by Dante. — Nature a Predominant Element of the "Commedia." — God in the Poem. -The Angels. — The Demons. — The Style 11 9-1 41 ^Dante's Influence on Italian Literature. — His Influence on the Mind of Foreign Nations 141-145 His Influence on Art 145-147 Analysis of the Poem, considered as a Dramatic Composition. — Its / Prologue. — The Forest; the Three Beasts, — Virgil. — His Mis- \ sibn from Beatrice. — The Mystic Journey 148-155 Inferno. — Its Structure and Divisions. — The Inscription. — The Neu- trals. — The River Acheron. — Charon. — The Limbo. — The Ancient Poets.- — The Heroes and Heroines. — Mmos. — Francesca da Rimini. — The Gluttonous. — Cerberus. — Ciacco, the Pig. — The Prodigal and Avaricious. — Fortune. — The Wrathful and Slothful. — Filippo Argenti.— The City of Dis.— The Furies.— The Angel of God.— Atheists and Infidels. — Farinata degli Uberti. — Cavalcante Caval- canti. — The Penal Code of the "Commedia." — The Violent. — \ Table of Contents. ix PAGE The Minotaur and the Centaurs. — The Tyrants. — The Suicides. — Pietro delle Vigne. — The Blasphemers. — Capaneus. — The Sym- bol of Humanity, and the Rivers of Hell. — Brunetto Latini. — Geryon. — The Usurers*^^ — The Poets descend the Abyss. — The Flatterers. — The Simoniacs. — Nicholas III. — Boniface VIII. — Di- viners and Astrologers. — The Public Peculators. — An Alderman of Lucca on the Shoulders of a Black Devil. — Malacoda and his Com- panions. — The Lake of Boiling Pitch. — Ciampolo. — A Comic Scene. — An Escape from a Tragic End. — The Hypocrites. — A Steep Ascent. — The Robbers. — Vanni Fucci. — Cacus. — A Fright- ful Transformation of Men into Serpents, and of Serpents into Men. — Evil Counsellors. — Ulysses; his Discovery of America. — Guido da Montefeltro. — The Devil a Good Logician. — The Sowers of Scandal. — Mahomet. — Bertrand de Born, the Provencal Trouba- dour. — The Forgers. — Adamo da Brescia. — A Conversation. — The Giants. — ^The Sound of a Horn. — Antaeus. — The Traitors. — Bocca degli Abati and others. — Count Ugolino. — Fra Alberigo. — Lucifer. — Exeunt i56-a43 PuRGATORio. — Its Structure and Divisions. — Change of Scene. — Cato. — Dante is laved vAth. the Dew of Heaven. — He is girt with a Reed. — Landing of Spirits. — Casella. — Manfred, King of Naples. — The Ascent. — The Type of Idleness. — Other Spirits. — Buonconte di Montefeltro. — La Pia. — Sordello. — An Invective. — Sordello and Virgil. — Valle Fiorita. — Two Angels. — The Serpent. — The Eagle. — ^The Poets enter the Purgatorio. — Sculptures. — The Proud. — The Lord's Prayer. — Oderigi da Gubbio. — Worldly Fame. — Sculptures. — An Angel. — The Envious. — The Ghost of Sapia. — Guido del Duca. — The Angel of God. — A Fog. — Marco Lombardo. — A Vision. — A Syren. — An Angel. — The Avaricious. — Adrian V. — Statius. — The Gluttonous. — Forese Donati. — Against the Immod- est Dresses of the Ladies of Florence. — The Poet Buonagiunta. — A Prophecy. — The Angel of God. — Carnal Sinners. — Guido Gui- nicelli. — Through the Fire. — Leah. — ^The Terrestrial Paradise. — Matilda. — A Vision. — ^The Pageant of the Church. — The Appari^ tion of Beatrice. — ^The Poet's Rebuke. — His Repentance. — Beatrice / Table of Contents, PAGE unveiled. — The Tree of Humanity. — The Car of the Church and the Tree of Humanity. — The History of the Church. — Its Trans- formation into a Monstrous Institution. — Beatrice*s Advice and Prophecy. — Dante's Final Regeneration 244-322 Paradiso.— The Heavens.— The Structure of the Paradise— Beatrice y gazing on the Sun.— Towards the First Heaven. — Love a Univer- sal Law. — His Further Ascent.— The Moon.— Piccarda Danati. — Religious Vows. — Mercury. — The Emperor Justinian. — Romeo. — /Beatrice instructs the Pott.— Venus.— Charles Martel.— The Ghost of Cunizza.— Folques of Marseilles.— The Sun.— The Spirits in the Sun.— St. Thomas Aquinas. — St. Francis of Assisi. -St. Bonaven- tura.— St. Dominic— The Dance and the Music of the Spirits. — Instruction.— Solomon.— The SjTiile_of Beatrice.-Mars.— Chris- tian Warriors.— Cacdaguida.— The Golden Age of Florence.— Cac- ciaguida's Prophecy.— Dante's Answer.— Cacciaguida's Charge.— Jupiter.— The Imperial Eagle.— Saturn.— St. Pier Damiano.— The Luxury of the Priests.— St. Benedict.— The Fixed Sters.— The Tri- umph of Christ.— The Triumph of Mary.— The Prayer of Beatrice. —St. Peter.— Dante's Religious Faith.— St. James. — Hope. — St. John.— Charity.— St. Peter's Invective.— The Angelic Orders.— Reprehension of Theologians and Preachers. — The Empyrean. — The Triumph of the Blessed.— The Court of Heaven.— St. Ber- nard.— The Virgin Mary.— The Deity 3^3-413 J J » » J J » >:,»:* fuSIVBRSITYj DAN T E INTRODUCTION. " innHE poet," says Schiller, " is the son of his time, I but pity for him if he is its pupil, or even its favorite. Let some beneficent deity snatch him, vi^hen a suckling, from the breast of his mother, and nurse him with the milk of a better time, that he may ripen to his full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky ; and having grown to manhood, let him return, a foreign shape, into his century — not, however, to delight it by his presence, but, dreadful as the son of Agamemnon, to purify it." The ideal poet thus sketched by Schiller finds his highest historic illustration in the great na- tional bard of Italy, the colossal central figure of the age in which he lived. Its master rather than its pupil, the object of its persecution rather than its favorite, early snatched away by the beneficent deity of sorrow, to be nurtured by the contemplation of a lofty ideal, which was revealed to him alone, he walked, a foreign shape, among his countrymen, whom he sought not to 2 The Age of Dante, delight, but to purify and elevate ; and although six centuries have passed away, the stern voice of his muse still utters its terrible maledictions on evil-doers, and its menaces against the oppressors of his country ; while it exalts the just, and speaks words of hope and comfort to the oppressed. But if he soared above his contemporaries, he was nevertheless the son of his time, the ideas and sentiments of which he reflected. We must, accordingly, glance at its character, in order fully to comprehend his relation to it. Thetwelfch and thirteenth centuries mark that pe- riod of transition between ancient and modern times, in which Europe was emerging from the chaos that succeeded the fall of the Roman Empire ; when new and foreign elements, combining with the remains of ancient civilization, had resulted in an organized socie- ty, although still convulsed by diverse and antagonistic elements ; when the struggle between feudalism and democracy, the empire and the papacy, the monarchi- cal system and the municipal regime, had combined to stimulate the human mind, and lead to those social transformations, of which the age of Dante, so great in its tendencies, its deeds, and even its contradictions, was the most remarkable result. It was an age of barbarism, superstition, anarchy, and tyranny ; but it was also an age in which refinement and free thought began to appear, together with a longing for liberty, order, and social unity. Modern languages and nation- alities were rapidly developing ; England had established The Jge of Dante. 3 her birthright in the Magna Charta ; France had com- menced the work of national organization ; the Spanish monarchy was advancing in resources and power ; Ger- many enjoying the conquests won in the reign of the glorious HohenstaufFens ; and the Christian world was gradually emancipating itself from the despotism of the Church, which had culminated in the great successor of Hildebrand, that terror of princes and heretics, In- nocent III. Meantime, the burgher class and the peasantry were rapidly becoming a power in the State ; the limits of the world were widened through the voyages of Marco Polo and other Italians ; ideas were enlarged, and com- merce extended ; and while the human mind began to vindicate its independence, through the opposition of the Albigenses to the traditions of the papacy, as well as through the free^^songsof the Tjmu^^gurs, the Uni- versities of Paris and Bologna became centres of learn- ing and genius ; science and theology were illustrated by the great names of Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas, and art found its highest expres- sion in the cathedrals of Antwerp and Cologne. In this work of social transformation, Italy had early taken the lead. Nourished more than any other nation by the Roman traditions, first awakened by the voice of Christianity, disorganized and reconstructed by the Northern invasions, morally and rpaterially enriched by the Crusades, educated in the struggle between the pa- pacy and the empire, Italy, even in the darkest periods 4 T'he Age of Dante. of her' history, enjoyed greater wealth, order, liberty, and refinement, than could be found in any other part of Western Europe. While England, Germany, and France, were yet shrouded in barbarism, and crushed by the iron heel of feudalism, the Italian States had attained a high degree of social progress. In their municipal organization, they enjoyed the freedom of self-government ; Venice, Genoa, Pisa, held the scep- tre of maritime commerce ; their ships covered every sea, and their colonies dotted the shores of the Med- iterranean ; while they were rivalled by Florence and Milan, whose manufactories supplied Europe with com- modities of every kind, and whose banks made loans alike to tradesmen and monarchs. Long before the birth of Dante, the Lombard League, in the North, had permanently asserted the independence of the cities on the battle-field of Legnano, and caused their rights to be recognized by the treaty of Constance. In the South, during the reign of Frederick II., a brilliant pe- riod had opened under the Arabian influence : education, science, art, and poetry were promoted ; agriculture, commerce, and the administration of justice were im- proved ; free institutions were established ; the work of national unity was boldly undertaken, and to a great extent carried out ; and the authority of the State was firmly vindicated against the encroachments of the Church. The great .principles of Roman jurisprudence were revived in the schools of Padua and Bologna ; while with the introduction of Arabian learning at the T^he Age of Dante. 5 College of Salerno, began a new era in the history of intellectual development. Under these vivifying agen- cies, the arts also began to flourish, leaving imperisha- ble monuments in the magnificent palaces and churches which are still the admiration of the world, and in the illustrious names of Cimabue and Giotto, the greatest among the early regenerators of Italian art. But this advanced civilization contained within itself two fatal elements of disintegration and decay : the first, that of State sovereignty, on which the muni- cipal governments rested isolated and divided ; the second, the , papa^. whose influence, however benefi- cial it may have proved to the cause of general civili- zation in the early period of its history, could not but be antagonistic to that national unity which, if com- pleted, would necessarily put an end to its supremacy. Hence, it has ever been the policy of the popes to foment local prejudices and ambitions, to promote dis- cord among the republics, to discourage all progress, to ally themsely^ with the more ignorant anT supersti-^ tious__classes, and to invite foreign intervention as the only means through which they could consolidate and preserve their power. These two sources of discord, which have distracted Italy for so many centuries, and prevented her organization, find their parallel to-day in these United States, whose national existence is threatened by the same pernicious doctrine of State Rights, and by the Slave-Power, which, in its assertion of the dominion of man over man, and in the social a* "6 Gnelfhs and Ghibelins, results which it produces, is so akin to the papal insti- tutions. In opposition to these influences, a tendency toward nationality early manifested itself in the struggle be- tween the empire and the papacy, which divided Italy into the two great parties of the Guelphs and the Ghibelins, who represented two opposing principles in Italian poHcy. With these two parties the life of Dante is so closely connected, that it would be impos- sible to comprehend his character, either as a statesman or a poet, without a glance at their history, and the issues involved in their contest. The^Italian people, in the tenth century, harassed by foreign invaders and the contentions of feudal lords, placed themselves under the protection of Otho the Great, of Germany ; and from that time Italy, with the exception of a brief interval, remained united to the German Empire. The King of the Romans, being henceforth chosen by the Electors of Germany, be- came, after he had been crowned by the pope, the recognized head of the empire : the pope, in turn, was confirmed in power by the emperor, to whom, up to the thirteenth century, he acknowledged alle- giance. Under Gregory VII., however, the papal Church not only asserted its independence of the empire, but claimed control over all emperors and kings. Hence arose that gigantic struggle which was still going on in the time of Dante. In the reign of Henry IV., and in that of his succes- Guelphs and Ghibelins. 7 sor, Henry V. (1056-1125), the ducal families of Welf and Wieblingenrose to power ; and their descendants, Conrad and Henry the Proud, became rival claimants for the imperial dignity — the one supporting the papal power, the other the imperial. The contest was trans- ferred to Italy, where the war-cries of the contending parties, Welf and Wieblingen, were naturalized into ^Guelfi and Ghibellini. From the time of Henry IV., Florence had taken sides with the Church, or the Guelph party ; but in 1248, the Ghibelins succeeded in overthrowing their rivals, only to be in turn driven out the following year. The Guelphs remained in power, and a general pacifi- cation took place, soon to be disturbed, however, by the discovery of a conspiracy of the Ghibelins, many of whom were beheaded, while others escaped or were banished. The refugees fled to Siena, where, aided by Manfred, King of Naples and Sicily, and son of the Emperor Frederick II., they organized a powerful army, met the Florentine Guelphs, and gained over them the memorable battle of Monteaperti, in 1260. Florence now again fell under the Ghibelins, who held the power until 1266, when the Guelphs regained it by the aid of Charles of Anjou, who, instigated by the pope, came at the head of a French army to seize the kingdom of Manfred. Having been crowned in Rome, Charles, on his way to take possession of the domin- ions thus conferred upon him, found at Benevento the gallant Manfred ready to dispute his claim. The battle 8 Guelfhs and Ghibelins. which followed was at first fought with great bravery ; but when victory was about to crown the arms of the Swabian prince, he found himself suddenly deserted by his most trusted officers. Overwhelmed by this treach- ery, the heroic Manfred, refusing to escape, with a little band of faithful followers, rushed into the thickest of the fight, and fell on the field. Thus Charles of Anjou took possession of the kingdom of Naples and Sicily as a fief from the pope. Meanwhile, Florence and the other northern cities arrayed themselves under the banner of the Guelphs, who had placed him on the throne. On the arrival of his vicar to take possession of the Florentine government, which had been surren- dered to him for ten years, the Ghibelins departed from the city ; and, although they long continued the struggle, they never regained their former ascendency. In vain did Conradin, the grandson of Frederick II., the last scion of the Swabian race, strive to reconquer the inheritance of his ancestors. Although, a few years later, the bells of the Sicilian Vespers tolled the knell of the French domination in Sicily, and gave the signal for the renewal of the contest to which that unfortu- nate young prince had bravely challenged his foes from the scaffold, the power of the Guelphs remained un- impaired in the Peninsula. In that contest, the Guelphs and the Ghibelins not only represented the papal and imperial power, but that ever-existing antagonism between the plebeians and the patricians which lies at the foundation of all Guelphs and Ghibelins. 9 political parties. The Guelphs were, at first, the ad- vocates of popular liberty, as expressed in the free municipaHties ; and being thus opposed to the imperial or aristocratic power, they became the natural allies of the popes, who succeeded, through their aid, in raising the papacy to a height which it had never before at- tained. On the other hand, the Ghibelins, beheving in the necessity of a stronger government, in the pre- vailing anarchy, supported the claims of the emperors and their vassals ; and thus, while they opposed the papacy, they aimed, at least indirectly, at the political consolidation of the Peninsula. With the fall of the Swabian family the Guelphs finally triumphed ; the aristocracy was defeated ; and the emperors found themselves confined, for the most part, to their Ger- man dominions. At the same time, a change of prin- ciples became apparent in both parties. While the Guelphs, secure in the possession of local freedom, ceased to oppose the nobility, which had now become almost identified with the people, resisted but faintly the empire, which was in its decline, they remained faithful to the cause of the popes, to whom they owed the final establishment of their power. The Ghibelins, on the other hand, opposed to the papacy, abandoning the claims of the aristocracy, remained devoted to national unity, which they sought to establish either by the revival of the empire, or by the elevation of a national chief. Thus, while the Guelphs represented the papal policy, the Ghibelins came to be the exponents of lO The Influence of 'Dante. national rights — although many of them were mere adventurers, who sided with the emperors only to ad- vance their own interests. These struggles were not in vain ; the public con- science was aroused from that lethargy into which it had fallen under the influence of the irresponsible au- thority of the Church ; Christianity began to free itself from the outward forms with which it had been encum- bered, and the aspiration for that individual and national liberty began to arise which is now recognized as con- stituting one of the essential principles of modern civ- iHzation. A century had not yet passed since Innocent III. had caused the kings of Europe to tremble on their thrones, and nations to fall at his feet, when the bull of Boniface VIII., claiming the right of interference in the administration of the State, was burned in Paris by the order of Philip the Fair, his former ally ; and the pope himself, dressed in his pontifical robes, was dragged from the church, and driven, amidst the jeers of the populace, through the streets of Anagni — the caricature of a power which was fast declining. It was in this age of transition that Dante was born and nurtured ; it was by these influences that his genius was inspired. Early thrown into the turmoil of public life, he played a prominent part in the great drama of his century, as a soldier, a statesman, an ambassador, a supreme magistrate, in the most flourishing and ad- vanced Republic of the middle ages. Although partisan writers have often profanely misrepresented his senti- The Ivfluence of 'Dante, 1 1 ments, and the intellectual despotism which since his time has presided over Italian literature has often con- cealed the philosophic and political ideas, which form the basis of his writings, beneath legen^^s, idle interpre- tations, or questions of language and prosody, his tran- scendent genius has soared triumphant over all: and he stands forth as the philosopher whose intellect em- braced all the knowledge of his time ; the theologian who expressed in popular language the speculations of the divine science ; the reformer who first boldly at- tacked the papal institutions as baneful to the welfare of Italy, as well as to the progress of the human mind j the statesman who expounded an entire system of gov- ernment, corresponding to the highest exigencies of human society ; the patriot who sacrificed his life to the good of his country ; and, finally, the poet who sang the destiny of Italy and of humanity, made Chris- tianity the subject of a sublime epic, and Christian virtue the object of all action. He experienced every reverse of fortune. He was a fugitive and a wanderer in his native land, and died an exile from the city of his birth and of his love. He wore the crown of thorns, which, from Socrates to Milton, has been the lot of all who have striven to elevate the race. But he left in his poem a work as enduring as literature itself, which, while it echoed the moans of a Past that was dying forever, saluted in sublime strains the morning of a new Civilization. In the long period of her dismemberment, oppressed 12 The Influence of Dante. by tyranny, and distracted by civil convulsions, Italy has lived in the memory of her great poet, whose sublime song has preserved her hopes and aspirations. The idea of national unity, which found in him its first interpreter, descending through the ages, moved the enthusiasm of Cola di Rienzo ; awoke a patriotic chord in the lyre of Petrarch ; led the philosophic mind of Machiavelli to impart a more practical direction to the national sentiment ; kindled the genius of modern poets, from Alfieri to Monti, Niccolini, and Manzoni ; illumined the policy of princes, from the Visconti and the Medici to Victor Emanuel ; inspired the worship of patriots, philosophers, and warriors, from Campanella to Garibaldi, and the wisdom of statesmen, from Gero- lamo Morone to Cavour. And now, when the aspi- rations for which Dante lived and died are about to be realized, and the hopes nourished by the tears and the blood of generations begin to bear their fruit, regener- ated Italy, as she enters the new epoch of her history, on the return of the anniversary of his birth, rises, rev- erent and joyful, to do honor to him whose immortal muse has for so many centuries never ceased to call her from her grave. Now Florence, at whose hands he drank the bitter cup of his sorrow, on this day, when political necessity intrusts to her keeping the national Crown, offers to her Poet, as a solemn atonement for the cruel ingratitude with which she persecuted her noblest son, an Apotheosis worthy of his fame — a triumph more grand than that which he proudly fore- ^he Influence of Dante. 13 told, when, crushed by the calamities of his country, and stung by the bitter sense of personal wrong, he sang in prophetic strain : — If e'er the sacred poem that hath made Both heaven and earth copartners in its toil. And with lean abstinence, through many a year. Faded my brow, be destined to prevail Over the cruelty which bars me forth Of the fair sheepfold, where, a sleeping lamb. The wolves set on and fain had worried me ; With other voice, and fleece of other grain, I shall forthwith return ; and, standing up At my baptismal font, shall claim the wreath Due to the poet's temples.* * Paradiso, xxv. 14 Birth of Dante, DANTE, a Christian name abbreviated from Du- rante, was born in Florence, May 14th, 1 265, of the ancient and noble family of the Allighieri, believed to have been of Roman origin, but whose first ances- tor recorded in history was Cacciaguida, a Florentine Knight, who died in the Crusade led by the Emperor Conrad III., in the middle of the twelfth century. A son of Cacciaguida, having inherited the maiden name of his mother, Aldighieria degli Aldighieri, a daughter of a lawyer of that name at Ferrara, became the founder of the Allighieri of Florence. Of this family, Bellinci- one, the grandfather of Dante, had seven children, the eldest of whom, AUighierio degli Allighieri, a juriscon- sult and judge by profession, was the father of the poet. He was conspicuous among the leaders of the Guelph party, to which the Allighieri belonged ; and on its defeat at the battle of A^onteaperti, he went into exile, thus preceding in the thorny path of proscription his most gifted son, the offspring of his second marriage, with Donna Bella. It was in the ninth year of his age that Dante first met Beatrice, who, according to the popular idea, inspired him with that transcendent love, the story of which he himself relates in the Vita Nuova^ and which he has immortalized in the Divina Commedia. Con- cerning the nature of this love, there have been various l^he Vita Nucrca. 15 opinions among commentators. While some have re- garded it as the romantic devotion of an impassioned lover to an actual woman, by others Beatrice is con- sidered as a purely symbolic character. Boccaccio, vv^ho wrote the life of Dante a few years after his death, and, as might be supposed, takes the romantic view of the question, relates that this first meeting took place at the house of Folco Portinari, the father of Beatrice, a man greatly esteemed by his countrymen, who had invited his friends, with their children, to visit him on the occasion of the Spring festival which the Floren- tines were accustomed to celebrate on the first of May. He describes Beatrice, then only eight years old, as a child of surpassing beauty, possessed of such dignity of manner, and such a charm of expression, that she was looked upon almost as an angel ; and he adds that Dante, although so young, received her image into his heart with such affection, that from that day forward, never, as long as he lived, did it depart therefrom. The Vita Nuova^ composed from 1293 ^^ ^3°^, con- tains thirty-one poems of different dates, accompanied by prose notes and interpretations, which connect them together, and explain their occasions and apparent mean- ing. It is essentially mystic in its character, and leaves the reader in doubt as to the nature of the love, wheth- er real or symbolical, which it portrays. Dante here describes his first meeting with Beatrice, when love became the master of his soul ; the devotion with which he followed her while a boy ; and how, after nine years. l6 The Fita Nuova. this most gentle lady again appeared before him, clothed in pure white — and passing along the street, she turned her eyes towards the place where he stood very timidly, and by her ineffable courtesy saluted him with such grace, that, intoxicated with delight, he turned away from the crowd, and, betaking himself to his solitary chamber, he fell into a sweet slumber, in which a mar- vellous vision appeared to him. This vision he de- scribed in a sonnet, his first poetical composition, copies of which, as was often the custom in that age, were sent to the poets for their interpretation. The sonnet was well received, and poems in answer to it were returned — one particularly from Guido Cavalcanti, who, having thus made the acquaintance of Dante, conceived for him a friendship which terminated only with his death. Dante da Majano, however, another poet of some renown, showed very little sympathy with the mystic fancies of the lover, and, in a satirical response, advised the poet to seek the aid of the physician. Thus Dante, according to the letter of the Vita Nuova^ continued to dream and to love — to gaze at Beatrice from a distance, and to compose poems in her praise — abstaining, however, from naming her, fearful lest he should offend her purity or compromise her honor. He tells us that he attempted to conceal his affection, even by feigning love for another lady, to whom he dedicated the songs intended for Beatrice, and that this fiction went on for several years ; and that at last Beatrice refused to salute him when they l^he Fita Nuova, 17 met. Then he relates that he returned home, locked himself in his chamber, where his lamentations could not be heard, and gave himself up to despair, until at length he fell asleep, with tears in his eyes, like a child who had been beaten. Again, at a wedding festival, he was so overpowered by her presence, that he was led away by his friends ; and in answer to their inqui- ries as to what was the matter with him, he replied, " I have set my feet on that edge of life, beyond which no man can go with power to return." On one occasion, having met with some ladies who knew the secret of his heart, Dante was questioned as to why he loved Beatrice, since he could not bear her presence ; such a love, said they, must be indeed of a strange nature. " The object of my love," repHed the poet, " was to obtain her salutation ; and in that was all my blessedness, and the end of all my desires. But since she was pleased to refuse me this, my Lord Love has in his mercy placed all my beatitude in that which cannot fail me — that is, in praising my glorious lady." To which one of the ladies answered : " If thou speak- est truly when thou sayest that thou lovest, thou must use the word love in another sense from that which it really means." In a canzone, he describes a dream, or vision, in which he beholds the dead body of Beatrice, surrounded by women with unbound hair, who abandon themselves to mourning, as they cover the beautiful features with a snowy veil. Dark clouds obscure the sun ; the stars l8 ^he Vita Nuoroa. are pale with grief. He beholds the slow and sorrowful funeral procession ; he sees a company of angels bear- ing away the soul of his beloved, enveloped in a white cloud. Tears gush from his closed eyes ; he cries, '' O beautiful soul, how happy is he who can yet behold j thee !" and he calls on Death to bear him away to ^ Beatrice. The fair watchers at his bedside hasten to awaken him from his terrible dream, and ask the occa- sion of his grief. But in the sobs and groans with which he reveals it, they are unable to distinguish the name of Beatrice, and so the cause of his sorrow re- mained a poetical mystery to them. This vision was the foreshadowing of approaching reality ; for the actual Beatrice soon after died, at the age of twenty-four, having been married for a few years to Simone de' Bardi, afterwards conspicuous in the political party of the Neri, by which Dante was so bitterly persecuted. Alluding to her death, which took place on the ninth day of the ninth month of the year, he traces some mysterious connection between Beatrice and the number nine, " three being the factor of nine, the Author of miracles Himself being three. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are three in one ; this lady was accompanied by the number nine, that it might be lunderstood that she was a miracle, whose only root is the marvellous Trinity.'* He calls her the glorious lady of his mind, the daughter of God, not of man ; he says that her aspect caused death to every other thought, and that her presence preserved man from all Beatrice. 19 wrong, destroyed all enmity and all sensuous impulses, kindled the flame of charity, and put to flight pride and wrath. That the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova is the same who reappears in the Divina Commed'ia^ is evident from the conclusion, in which he says : — " Soon after this a wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw things which made me purpose to speak no more of this blessed one until I could more wor- thily treat of her. And to attain to this, I study to the utmost of my power, as she truly knoweth. So that, if it shall please Him through whom all things live, that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to speak of her as never was spoken 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, the blessed Beatrice, who in glory looks upon the face of Him, qui est per omnia secula henedictus P'' Admitting that the Beatrice of Dante was the daugh- ter of Portinari, and not the mere personification of certain ideas so in accordance with the taste of the age, it is evident that the imagination of the poet trans- formed the actual woman into^ a pure ideal, and that little of her human nature remained. According to his own account, his relations with her were of the most formal kind. He first meets her at the age of nine years; nine years after, he passes her in the street, and in her salutation he experiences all the bliss a mortal can enjoy. At a wedding festival he is led away, over- 2iO Beatrice. powered by her presence. They meet again in public, and she refuses to recognize him. He expresses no sorrow or disappointment on the occasion of her mar- riage with another, and no desire for any more intimate relations with her himself. The Vita Nuova was com- posed during the most brilliant and active period of his life, while he was the recognized leader in political affairs, foreign ambassador, and chief magistrate of the Republic. Two years after the death of Beatrice, and while apparently lamenting her loss, he married Gemma Donati, who became the mother of his seven children ; and it seems highly improbable that, under these circum- stances, he should write a book with the sole object of relating his attachment to another woman, in a form which, if not intended in a symbolic sense, would have been scarcely reconcilable with that discretion and sound judgment by which he was so eminently dis- tinguished. The Vita Nuova^ therefore, must be regarded, not as the record of the early love of the poet, but rather of that new Life, of that intellectual development, in which he became conscious of the indwelling of the divine life v when, his spiritual insight becoming more acute, finite objects revealed themselves to his mind as mere shad- ows of an infinite reality, to which he longed to unite himself. But whatever semblance of personality may seem to attach to the Beatrice of the Vita Nuova^ in the Convito and the Divina Commedia she becomes purely symbolic. Beatrice. 21 The Convito^ the continuation of the Vita Nuova^ and intended especially to assist it, as Dante himself says, furnishes the true key for the interpretation ; and here, after speculating on love and philosophy symbolized in Beatrice, " From this," he writes, " it may be seen who this lady is, and why she is called Philosophy ;" by which he means the highest aspiration of the human soul, the bride of the reason, which, becoming identi- fied with it, elevates and sanctifies it ; in contradistinc- tion to the philosophy of the schools, which he em- bodies in another lady, whom he represents as having at one time attracted him. It is therefore probable that he adopted the name of Beatrice from its literal signification — Source of beatitude — rather than from any reference to the wife of Bardi. The symbolism of the Platonic writers derived its chief beauty from the degree of reality with which they invested their personifications, and this peculiarity was wonderfully intensified by the genius of Dante. Thus in the Divina Commedia^ beholding Beatrice descend from heaven, Dante feels that love revive which thrilled him even in his childhood ; and when she lifts her veil, and reveals to him her second beauty, he regards her with that eagerness which a thirst of ten years had created. She reproaches him for his inconstancy, and says when she had changed her mortal for immortal he left her and gave himself to others, although nothing had been to him so pleasant as the contemplation of the beautiful limbs which enclosed her, and which are now scattered in dust. 1 22 Beatrice, These and other passages which are so vividly expres- sive of her womanhood, like the passionate words of Solomon to Shulamith, the symbol of Divine Wisdom, are always interpreted in a purely symbolic sense by the early commentators, with the exception of Boccaccio. Pietro and Jacopo, the sons of the poet, while they make no allusion to Beatrice as a woman, expressly say, that by the thirst of ten years, Dante referred to that period when, immersed in political life, he longed for the study of divine things, in which alone he could find rest ; and that by his love for the beautiful limbs, he meant the supernal pleasure he had enjoyed in the meditation of the Scriptures. But Beatrice is not alone in her symbolic character ; she is surrounded by other ladies personifying virtues or ideas — the Blessed Lady in heaven, Lucia, Leah, Rachel, Matilda, and the nymphs of the terrestrial paradise. He himself expresses the necessity of introducing sensible images for the under- standing of transcendental ideas, and says : — For no other cause The Scripture, condescending graciously To your perception, hands and feet to God Attributes, nor so means : and Holy Church Doth represent with human countenance Gabriel, and Michael, and him who made Tobias whole. Thus Dante calls Beatrice the true praise of God, the glory of our kind, the fountain of all truth, and the Beatrice, 23 splendor of eternal light. Her beauty none save her Maker can fully enjoy. She is Goddess — the prime delight of primal love. Her eyes are brighter than the stars ; to look at them fulfils all desire. Her aspect is that of virtue ; it reflects God himself. Possessing her, mankind possesses all things. On his being lost in the forest of barbarism, she descends from heaven to his succor; she absolves him of his sins; she reveals to him her beauty, which, for ten years of w^orldly life, has been concealed from him ; she carries him with her from sphere to sphere; she unfolds to him the myste- ries of the Divine Mind; till, reaching the heights of the Empyrean, he beholds her on a throne of glory, and thus addresses her — not as a mortal woman, but as the grand personification of the Divine Wisdom : — " O lady ! thou in whom my hopes have rest ; Who, for my safety, hast not scorned, in hell To leave the traces of thy footsteps marked ; For all mine eyes have seen, I to thy power And goodness, virtue owe and grace. Of slave Thou hast to freedom brought me : and no means. For my deliverance apt, hast left untried. Thy liberal bounty still toward me keep: That, when my spirit, which thou madest whole. Is loosened from this body, it may find Favor with thee." So I my suit preferred: And she, so distant, as appeared, looked down. And smiled; then towards the eternal fountain turned.* * Paradiso, xxxi. ; Cf. also, Inferno, ii. ; Purgatorio, vi., xv., xviii., xxiii., xxvii., xxx., xxxi., xxxii. ; Paradiso, iii., iv., vii., xiv., xvlii., xxiv., XXV., xxvii., xxx. 24 Early Education. On the death of his father, Dante was, while yet a boy, intrusted to the care of Brunetto Latini, a philoso- pher, historian, poet, and statesman, who held the office of Secretary to the Florentine Republic. Being a Guelph, he was forced into exile soon after the battle of Monteaperti, and retired to France, where he wrote Le Tresor^ an Encyclopaedia of Mediaeval Science. He was also the author of the Tesoretto^ 3. poem on the con- duct of life. After the triumph of Charles of Anjou and the fall of the Ghibelins, he returned to Florence, where he resumed his former office, and continued to exercise a considerable influence on the government until his death. Of him Filippo Villani says : — " He was worthy of being numbered with the most distin- guished orators of antiquity. He was witty, learned, and shrewd ; ever ready to use his abilities in the service of others ; polished in manners ; a very useful person ; and, by the practice of all the virtues, would have been most happy if he had only been able to support with equanimity the evils of his turbulent country." It was under the guidance of this eminent man that Dante received his early education and his first lessons in the art of government. He acquired the knowledge of several languages — Latin, French, and Proven9al — and made himself acquainted with the various Italian dialects. He studied the Latin poets, and, above all, Virgil, whom he loved to address as the famous sage, his sweet and true father ; and to him, next to Beatrice, he gave the most prominent place in the Commedia. Philosophic Education. 25 Nor did he confine himself to poetry. Grammar, rhetoric, history, dialectics, geometry, music, and as- tronomy in turn occupied his attention, and he is rep- resented as the most powerful orator of his time. Contemporary with Cimabue and Giotto, living in the dawn of modern art, a nature so broad and sympathetic as that of Dante could not fail to be greatly affected by its potent influence. Many of the most magnificent structures of Florence were erected in his time ; and the traveller of to-day may stand on the spot indicated by the inscription Sasso di Dante^ inserted in the neighbor- ing wall, where, according to tradition, it was his delight to sit and watch from day to day the growing beauty of the Duomo. Leonardo of Arezzo, his second biographer after Boccaccio, tells us that he was an ex- cellent draughtsman, and he himself relates, m his Vita Nuova^ that on a certain occasion he occupied himself in drawing figures of angels. By some of his biogra- phers he is represented as the pupil of Cimabue. He was certainly the friend of the artists, the painters, and the musicians of his age : among them were Casella, who set to music several of his songs ; Oderigi da Gubbio, the celebrated miniature-painter ; and Giotto, who, according to Vasari, was assisted in his profession by the advice of Dante and by his designs. He took a leading part in the love-fetes and brilliant festivities to which Florence, though in the midst of civil war, seems to have been much devoted. He delighted in the prac- 4 26 Philosophic Education. tice of all the elegant arts, and was the most accom- plished man among his contemporaries. Having passed his youth in these preparatory studies, he soon enlarged the sphere of his education, and sought alleviation from his sorrow for the mystical death of Beatrice in the study of philosophy. " I set myself," he says, " to read that book of Boethius, but little known, with which he had consoled himself in prison and in exile ; and hearing that TuUy had written a book treating of friendship, in which he had addressed some words of consolation to Laelius, a most excellent man, on the death of Scipio, his friend, I set myself to read that ; and although at first it was difficult to understand, I at length succeeded so far as my knowledge of the language and such little capacity as I had enabled me ; by means of which capacity I had already, like one dreaming, discovered many things, as may be seen in the Vita Nuova. And as it might happen that a man seeking silver should, beyond his expectation, find gold, which a hidden chance presents to him, not perhaps without divine direction, so I, who sought for consola- tion, found not only a remedy for my tears, but also acquaintance with authors, with knowledge, and with books."* ' Through the study of philosophy his intellectual faculties were quickened, his spiritual insight was stimu- lated, and the moral bearing of all achievements became more defined. He was assiduous in his attendance at * Convito. Philosophk Education, 27 the lectures and discussions of the Schools ; he turned his thoughts to the great problems of science with an intensity that no outward tumult could disturb, and devoted himself to study with such perseverance, that his sight at an early age became greatly impaired. Thirty months had scarcely passed from his reading of Cicero and Boethius, when, as he says, philosophy became the mistress of his soul, which, as we have seen, he delighted to symbolize in Beatrice, and to whose worship he henceforth dedicated his life. To complete his education, like the sages of old, he now travelled abroad — visited the Universities of Bo- logna, Padua, Cremona, Naples, and, at a later period, that of Paris. In these travels he became familiar with the prominent men of the time, and the prevailing sys- tems of philosophy. Although he may have derived some ideas directly from the East, through the ambassa- dors of the Asiatic monarchies, who in the thirteenth century came to Rome, and from the missionaries returned from those countries, he chiefly owed his philosophic culture to the study of the Greek writers. These he probably did not read in the original, as his knowledge of the Greek language seems to have been limited. But, as far as regarded Plato, and through him Pythagoras and Socrates, Dante became acquainted with their doctrines in the Latin translations, particu- larly through the writings of Cicero, that great eclectic who preserved so much of the wisdom of the ancients ; and through those of the Fathers of the Church, St. Au- 28 Philosophic Education. gustine, and other ecclesiastical writers of the Platonic school. Yet, while he was akin to Plato in the general tendency of his thoughts, and in the lofty symbolism by means of which he expressed them, he derived scientific ideas and forms from Aristotle, whose works he knew through Latin versions, the schoolmen, and the great Commentary of Averrhoes, whose speculations he often made his own. Ontologic and synthetic with Plato, he was psychologic and analytic with Aristotle, under whose guidance he anatomized nature, and examined the struc- ture of the human mind and the organic construction of science, thus acquiring from the Peripatetic method dis- cipline and strength, power of logic, of systematic clas- sification and generalization. This mingling of the Idealism of Plato with the Realism of Aristotle is sym- bolized in the Commedia^ where he points out in Limbo the illustrious shades of the two philosophers, sitting side by side above the ancient masters of science, dividing the royalty of the human intellect. As in the study of ancient philosophy Dante derived his inspiration from the Academy and the Lyceum, so in theology, after the Scriptures and the Fathers, he revered as his teachers St. Bonaventura and St. Thomas Aquinas ; the one the representative of the Realism, the other of the Idealism, of the middle ages. While from familiarity with the writings of the former his tendency to mysticism and symbolism was increased, from the study of the works of the latter his faculties of analysis, concentration, and encyclopaedic combination ^he Convito. 29 were strengthened. His scientific system was the result of that eclectic power by which his mind was so distin- guished, and through which, assimilating the elements of various doctrines, he produced a system which em- braced the knowledge of the past and of his own age. The Convito^ or Banquet, a commentary on some of his poems, and the first philosophic treatise written in Italian prose, was composed during his exile. Although unfin- ished, and burdened by allegories and scholastic forms, it is characterized by depth of thought, purity of language, and beauty of style. It is particularly interesting for its allusions to the political parties and condition of Italy. In glancing at the general views of the poet on philoso- phy and its various departments, we shall follow the Convito^ adding a few illustrations from the Commedia^ to which that work may be considered as the philosophic introduction. Philosophy, with Dante, consists in the loving practice of that wisdom which has its infinite source in the Deity, from whom it is reflected on other intelligences in degrees proportioned to their love. It rests on truth, and leads to virtue and to the possession of the supreme good. " How blind are those," he exclaims, " who never lift their eyes to the contemplation of that daugh- ter of God ! She is the mother of all things, for in the creation of the world she stood before the Divine Mind. ' When the Lord prepared the heavens I was there,' she says ; ' when he set a compass upon the face of the 5* 3© Ws PhUosophy. depths ; when he established the clouds above ; when he straightened the fountains of the deep ; when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment ; when he appointed the foundations of the earth ; then I was by him, as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.' " Having thus defined philosophy, Dante next con- siders how philosophic truth may be attained. On one side man is naturally impelled to acquire knowledge ; on the other, his Intellectual power is limited. Since from things sensible alone we learn That which, digested rightly, after turns To intellectual,* how then shall he rise to the possession of those truths which, surpassing all experimental knowledge, are the foundation of philosophy ? The poet solves this ques- tion, on wbich later philosophers have differed so widely, by asserting that some knowledge of things that do not come under the cognizance of the senses may be gained through " that inward light which jnanifests itself be- neath the veil of external objects, and which, although not seen, is felt. The soul, imprisoned within the organs of the body, perceives that light, as a man in closing his eyes feels the action of the luminous air through that dim splendor which still penetrates his sight." Thus he admits the existence of a transcendental power consti- tuting the very essence of the human intellect, although * Paradiso, iv. H?'s Philosophy, 31 obscured by earthly conditions, and places the principle of knowledge in God — In Him, who is truth's mirror : and Himself Parhelion unto all things, and naught else To Him.^- In the investigation of truth, Dante expressly incul- cates the necessity of following the method of nature, proceeding from the known to the unknown ; from what is evident to that which is obscure. In thus establish- ing induction as the basis of scientific method, he anticipated Lord Bacon, whom he also preceded in enumerating the causes of error and its remedies. The first he ascribes to the senses, bad education, bad habits, defective intellect, and the predominance of the pas- sions. He laments the errors which spring from popu- lar prejudice, and says that those who follow current opinion without regard to its merits, are like the blind led by the bhnd, or like sheep which follow each other without discerning the cause of their movement. As to the remedies which preserve the mind from error, he holds that the senses should be distrusted in all things which are beyond their capacity : — If mortals err In their opinion, when the key of sense Unlocks not, surely wonder's weapon keen Ought not to pierce thee ; since thou iind'st the wings Of reason to pursue the senses' flight , Are short, f * Paradiso, xxvi. f Paradiso, ii. 32 H?s Philosophy. Experience, " the fountain whence our arts derive their streams," must be carefully consulted, and too much caution cannot be exercised in forming opinions — And let this Henceforth be lead unto thy feet, to make Thee slow in motion, as a weary man. Both to the " yea" and to the " nay" thou seest not. For he among the fools is down full low. Whose affirmation, or denial, is Without distinction, in each case alike. Since it befalls, that in most instances Current opinion leans to false : and then Affection bends the judgment to her ply.* He enforces a stern opposition to vulgar prejudice, and urges the control of the passions through devotion to wisdom. Then the clouds which obscure the in- tellect will gradually disappear, and, ascending above all doubt, it will attain the possession of truth, in which alone it can find rest. Well I discern, that by that truth alone Enlightened, beyond which no truth may roam. Our mind can satisfy her thirst to know ; Therein she resteth, e*en as in his lair The wild beast, soon as she hath reached that bound And she hath power to reach it ; else desire Were given to no end. And thence doth doubt Spring, like a shoot, around the stock of truth ; And it is nature which, from height to height, On to the summit prompts us.f * Paradiso, xiii. f Paradise, iv. Ht's Fhilosophy. 33 The cosmology of Dante is founded on the Chris- tian doctrine of the Divine creation and the astronomical system of Ptolemy, embellished by ideas borrowed from the Greek and Arabian philosophers. The universe is the offspring of an infinite Power, which, subsisting in icself, consciously knows and loves itself, and in the same act manifests itself through new natures, which become the mirror of its splendor. The poet thus describes the origin of all ideas and existences — from one and unalterable substance : — That which dies not. And that which can die, are but each the beam Of that idea, which our Sovereign Sire Engendereth loving ; for that lively light ; Which passeth from his splendor, not disjoined From him, nor from his love triune with them. Doth, through his bounty, congregate itself. Mirrored, as 'twere, in new existences ; Itself unalterable, and ever one.* Creation he considers eternal, following in this respect the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, which were also accepted by the early Fathers of the Greek Church, who believed that an infinite and immutable Being could not remain solitary for all eternity, but that he ever expressed himself in outward manifestations. The reason of the creation being eternal, the creation itself must of necessity have the same character. "As the Infinite is not made up of finites," says Barlow, * Paradise, xiii. 34 His Philosophy. "neither is eternity composed of times, but is antece- dent and subsequent to them. Duration, as compre- hended by man, is time; but with God, is eternity. So, before all time — before that which had a beginning, or can have an end — the Infinite cause of all existences produced from Himself, in virtue of the perfection of his Divine nature, orders of intellectual beings approxi- mate to his own. There never was, nor could be, an abstract eternal Being, dwelling apart from his creative energy. God, as correctly conceived by the human mind, is essentially the Creator. God, however, did not exercise his creative power of necessity, as under- stood by man; but out of the abundance of his love, and to manifest his glory. He created it out of the perfection of his own Divine Nature, which includes its essential activity and perfect liberty.."* Not that God from eternity created the world, as it appears, in time. Following the Aristotelian philoso- phy, Dante affirms that the eternal act' of the Creator brought forth into existence primeval matter — the An- gels and the human soul, understanding for the former a universal principle, shapeless and confused, without quality or form, which, in its perpetual evolutions, re- ceives all qualities and forms. " All things," says Daniello in his Commentary, "consist of matter and form. Matter is homogeneous, always the same, and ready to receive diverse forms ; form is that which gives * See " Critical, Historical, and Philosophical Contributions to the Study of the Divina Commedia" by H. C. Barlow. H2S Philosophy. 35 existence to any thing." Perfection consists in pure act — that is, the full identification of form with matter. Hence, " the angelic substances occupy the upper portion of the intellectual world, because angelic creatures are always in pure act and perfect, but not in potentia or pure capacities, as are inferior things which occupy the lower portion; while man, who combines potentiality with form or act, holds the middle part, and unites together both the extremes." These ideas are thus expressed in the Commedia: — Not for increase to himself Of good, which may not be increased, but forth To manifest his glory by its beams; Inhabiting his own eternity. Beyond time's limit or what bound soe'er To circumscribe his being; as he willed. Into new natures, like unto himself. Eternal love unfolded: nor before. As if in dull inaction, torpid, lay. For, not in process of before or aft. Upon these waters moved the Spirit of God. Simple and mixed, both form and substance, forth To perfect being started, like three darts Shot from a bow three-corded. And as ray In crystal, glass, and atnber, shines entire. E'en at the moment of its issuing; thus Did, from the eternal Sovereign, beam entire His threefold operation, at one act Produced coeval. Yet, in order, each Created his due station knew: those highest. Who pure intelligence were made; mere power. 3^ His Philosophy. The lowest; in the midst, bound with strict league. Intelligence and power, unsevered bond.* From primeval matter the heavenly bodies, the body of man, and the earth w^ere developed, when the uni- verse appeared girdled by the zone of infinite space, w^ithin which, in accordance with a universal law, the heavenly spheres revolve round the earth, which lies at the centre of the whole. God, a portion of the angelic natures and of the spirits of the blessed, dwell in the Empyrean, while others again inhabit the planets, which they influence, and over whose movements they preside. Here the poet mingles the astronomical ideas of his time with the doctrine of Averrhoes on the organism of the universe, which consisted, according to Renan, in a heaven eternal and incorruptible, composed of many orbs, which represented the members essential to its life. Heaven, the most noble of the animated beings, is moved by a soul, which, receiving its energy from the prime mover, is as the heart, whose vital influence is imparted to all the orbs of the cosmologic system. Each of these orbs has its special intelligence, which is its form, just as the rational soul is the form of man. These intelligences, hierarchically subordinate, consti- tute the chain of movers which propagate the move- ment of the first sphere down to the others. The moving power which they obey is desire, and, to attain the highest good, they move perpetually, thus manifest- '•'• Paradiso, xxix. His ?Mlosophy, 37 ing the desire which actuates them. Their intellect is always in act, uninfluenced by imagination and sensi- bility. They know themselves, and are conscious of whatever passes in the spheres beneath them, so that the first intelligence has the complete knowledge of all that occurs in the universe.* Man is the noblest of all creatures under heaven, for he partakes more of the Divine Nature. " He compre- hends within himself," says Dante, "all the faculties which belong to inferior beings, and is, besides, endowed with that direct ray of supreme intelligence which ren- ders him a divine animal. His body, the instrument of a divine virtue in its exquisite organization, is superior to those of the other sentient beings. The human soul particularly delights to express itself in the mouth and in the eyes, the most spiritual portions of the human body — the windows through which shines forth the woman who dwells within the body. Inward emotions appear through the senses, as colors through glass. The mind, the deity of the soul, manifests itself through its intellectual faculties, which may be reduced to those of judging, reasoning, inventing, and of scientific con- struction. Through them man is essentially a distinct nature; and although animals may show signs of intelli- gence, these are not true expressions of that power, as the image in the mirror is not the person which it represents." * See " Averroes et rAverroisme," par Renan 38 His Philosophy. The question of the origin of the human soul, which has perplexed philosophers of all times, Dante solves by- referring it to a direct manifestation of God to the sen- tient principle, which, originating in generation, devel- ops into an intellectual being when the primal mover breathes into it the breath of intellectual life. Soon as in the embryo, to the brain Articulation is complete, then turns The primal Mover with a smile of joy On such great work of nature ; and imbreathes New spirit replete with virtue, that what here Active it finds, to its own substance draws ; And forms an individual soul, that lives. And feels, and bends reflective on itself.* This manifestation of the Deity, although obscurely revealed to the soul, renders it intelligent. It is in virtue of reason, says Dante, that the human spirit partakes of the Divine Nature, under the form of an eternal intelligence. Yet the power of knowledge thus conferred is felt only in its effects, in which alone it can be observed. Man cannot know, a priori^ from whence his intellect derives its primal ideas, any more than he can know the origin of his first affections. It is only through induction that he discovers the source of his intellectual and moral powers, in that breath of the Divine Spirit to which he alludes in the verses above quoted. An impersonal divine light is naturally * Purgatorio, xxv. His Philosophy. 39 resplendent to all spiritual creatures, the personality of whose intellect is created by the communication of that very element. Dante here alludes to the theory of Averrhoes, who, disjoining the active from the passive intellect, destroyed the very nature of intellectual powers : — Spirit, substantial form, with matter joined. Not in confusion mixed, hath in itself Specific virtue of that union born. Which is not felt except it work, nor proved. But through effect, as vegetable life By the green leaf. From whence his intellect Deduced its primal notices of things, Man therefore knows not, or his appetites Their first affections ; such in you, as zeal In bees to gather honey.* How babe of animal becomes, remains For thy considering. At this point more wise Than thou has erred, making the soul disjoined From passive intellect, f The subject of the immortality of the soul, the necessary result of that divine manifestation which ren- ders it an intellectual being, is treated at some length in the Convito^ and is thus alluded to in the Commedia: — Know ye not That we are worms, yet made at last to form The winged insect, imped with angel plumes. That to Heaven's justice unobstructed soars ?J; * Purgatorio, xviil. f Ibid., xxv. J Ibid., x. 40 H?s Philosophy. Call to mind from whence ye sprang. Ye were not formed to live the life of brutes. But virtue to pursue, and knowledge high.* A lofty idea of the moral destiny of the race appears through all the writings of Dante. Moral perfection, in his view, is the great object for which man was created. His mystical love for Beatrice — divine ethics or wisdom — the prominent part he gives to that sym- bol — the symbolic virtues by which he surrounds it, and the manifest purpose of all his works, show that with him moral results had a pre-eminent importance. "He is not to be called a true lover of wisdom," he writes, "who loves it for the sake of gain, as do law- yers, physicians, and almost all persons who study, not in order to know, but to acquire riches or advance- ment, and who would not persevere in study should you give them what they desire to gain by it. As true friendship between men consists in each wholly loving the other, the true philosopher loves every part of wis- dom, and wisdom every part of the philosopher, inas- much as it draws all to itself, and allows no one of his thoughts to wander to other things." Love, with him, is the perfection of moral life, the prime mover, the source of every virtue, the universal law which presides over all organic and rational development. The origin of the human soul, its natu- ral impulse toward the Creator, and the influence of finite objects in leading it astray, he thus describes : — "" Inferno, xxvi. Hi's Philosophy. 41 Forth from his plastic hand, who charmed beholds Her image ere she yet exist, the soul Comes like a babe, that wantons sportively. Weeping and la^ighing in its wayward moods ; As artless, and as ignorant of aught. Save that her Maker being one who dwells With gladness ever, willingly she turns To whate'er yields her joy. Of some slight good The flavor soon she tastes ; and, snared by that. With fondness she pursues it ; if no guide Recall, no rein direct her wandering course.* f Free will, according to Dante, is the foundation of all merit: — Ye have that virtue in you whose just voice Uttereth counsel, and whose word should keep The threshold of assent. Here is the source Whence cause of merit in you is derived. E'en as the affections good or ill she takes. Or severs, winnow'd, as the chaff. f If this were so. Free choice in you were none ; nor justice would There should be joy for virtue, woe for ill. If, then, the present race of mankind err. Seek in yourselves the cause, and find it there. J Those men Who, reasoning, went to depth profoundest, marked That innate freedom ; and were thence induced To leave their moral teaching to the world. § * Purgatorio, xvi, f Ibid. % Ibid. | Ibid., xviii. 42 . Dante as a Naturalist. • Man is destined to reach his highest development through the union of his soul with the Supreme Good, which he can only accomplish by rendering his will perfectly conformable to the divine will, as manifested in that harmony which makes "the universe resemble God." In an age of scholastic dogmatism, Dante thus laid down those great principles derived from the Gos- pel, which have been too often disregarded ; and as- serted that true religion consisted not in forms, but in the constant exercise of duty, and in the perpetual effort to ascend to the heaven of ideal perfection, by assimilating to our spirit the Spirit of God which dwells within our hearts : — But lo ! of those "Who call "Christ, Christ !" there shall be many found. In judgment, farther off from him by far. Than such to whom his name was never known. Christians like these the ^thiop shall condemn. When that the two assemblages shall part ; One rich eternally, the other poor.* As a naturalist, Dante had an exquisite sentiment of the phenomena of terrestrial life ; and from the acute- ness of his mental insight, and his passionate study of nature, he had many glimpses of physical truths, which we find in curious hints as to causes and facts, which have only been established by the scientific researches of modern times. Beneath the surface of his poetical * Paradiso, xix. Dante as a NatyraUst. 43 fictions his Cosmos presents something of that unity and universality of plan which characterize the actual crea- tion ; and in the innumerable co-ordinate intelligences which he represents as presiding over the order of the universe, we see symbols of the permanent laws of nature, and of the correlative forces on which that order depends. (^ Xhe_£nilci£leofloye — with him the v^r^A law of all existences4-may be interpreted as a poetical \j^ allusion to the great law of attraction ; and had Newton y^Jlj read the words of Virgil, when, having passed through the f^j centre of the earth, he said that they had overpassed — That point to which from every part is dragged All heavy substance,* they might have suggested to the mind of that great philosopher the law of gravitation more strikingly than the accidental fall of an apple. The distinct allusion to the existence of a Western World, in the episode — in which Ulysses narrates his wanderings through the sea, when, after passing the Straits of Gibraltar, and saiHng westward for five months, he discovered a new land — may have had its influence with Columbus, to whom the Commedia was doubtless familiar, and thus Dante may have indirectly contributed to the discovery of the New World.t In Canto XXV. of the Purgatorio the theory of gen- eration is described, and the poet says : — With animation now endued. The active virtue (differing from a plant * Inferno, xxxiv. f Ibid., xxvi. 44 Danfe as a Naturalist, No further, than that this is on the way. And at its limit that) continues yet To operate, that now it moves, and feels. As sea-sponge clinging to the rock ; and there Assumes the organic powers its seed conveyed. This is the moment, son ! at which the virtue. That from the generating heart proceeds. Is pliant and expansive ; for each limb Is in the heart. by forgeful nature planned.* " To appreciate," says Barlow, " the physiological science shown by Dante in his masterly resume of the formation of and development of a human being, from the first mysterious movings of embryonic life to the completion of the foetal economy and the birth of an immortal soul, we must go back to that period when little or nothing more was known of the function of generation than what had been said by Aristotle, and repeated by his commentator Averrhoes. Had the poet been professor of physiology in the University of Bologna, and desired to preserve a memorial in his im- mortal work of the state of the science at that period, he could not have given a better account of it, or shown more judgment in the selection of his facts ; for not only does he avoid many of those errors into which his contemporaries and successors fell, but he seems to anticipate much of that true science which the latest investigations have brought to light, especially in refer- ence to the development of embryonic life. With regard to this subject we have learned to search out * Purgatorio, xxv. Dante as a Naturalist. 45 their progressive changes, and to scrutinize the secret operations of nature'; but we cannot give a better or more philosophical account of the primary agent con- cerned than was given by Dante when, going to the fountain-head of life, he called the generating fluid ' per- fect blood' — ** Which by the thirsty veins is ne'er imbibed. And rests as food superfluous to be taken From the replenished table, in the heart Derives eff^ectual virtue that informs The several human limbs."* '^ The verses indicating the changes which the human embryo undergoes contain," continues Barlow, " a correct summary of the general law of the changes now known to take place in embryonic life, and which the French physiologists call le principe des arrets de deve- loppement ; through which, as Milne Edwards describes it, each organic being, in its development, undergoes profound and various modifications, changing the char- acter of its anatomic structure and its vital faculties as it passes from the embryonic state to the condition of a perfect animal." The same writer points out the manner in which Dante expresses the physiological fact noted by Elliotson, that " however a human embryo is always a human embryo, still man is at first a kind of zoophyte." In Canto V. of the Purgatorio^ Buonconte da Monte- feltro, relating how his body was borne away by * Purgatorio, xxv. 46 Dante as a Naturalist the overflowing of the stream near which he lay, the poet thus, through him, explains the phenomenon of the rain : — Thou know'st how in the atmosphere collects That vapor dank, returning into water Soon as it mounts where cold condenses it. That evil will, which in his intellect Still follows evil, came ; and raised the wind And smoky mist, by virtue of the power Given by his nature. Thence the valley, soon As day was spent, he covered o'er with cloud. From Pratomagno to the inountain range ; And stretched the sky above ; so that the air Impregnate changed to water. Fell the rain ; And to the fosses came all that the land Contained not ; and, as mightiest streams are wont. To the great river, with such headlong sweep. Rushed, that naught stayed its course. " Had Dante," writes Barlow, alluding to this pas- sage, '' been thoroughly conversant with the moden theory of rain, he could not have expressed himself ir more accurate language than this. His knowledge o physical science appears to have been much in advanc- of that of the age in which he lived, and of his more immediate successors. The mediaeval meteorology o his commentators reads almost as nonsense in compari- son with the few masterly words of the poet on the same subject. In the description of the storm of rain which caused the Archiano to overflow, and bear awa\ the dead body of Buonconte to the Arno, where, Dante as a Naturalist. 47 whirled along its banks and rolled over its bed, the corpse became buried in the debris brought down by the river, Dante not only describes the circumstances with the pen of a poet, but, like a high-priest of nature, explains their causes also. In the words of Buonconte we have an accurate sketch of the formation of clouds and rain, by the mingling together of currents of air of different temperatures saturated with aqueous vapor. . . . . When rain falls from the upper region of the air we observe, at a considerable altitude, a thin, light veil, or a hazy turbidness ; as this increases, the lower clouds become diffused in it, and form a uniform sheet. Such is the Stratus cloud, described by Dante as covering the valley from Pratomagno to the ridge on the opposite side above Camaldoli. This cloud is a widely- extended, horizontal sheet of vapor, increasing from below and lying on or near the earth's surface. In the description given by Dante, the valley became covered in its entire breadth, so that to the cloud of vapor formed below was added the cloud of vapor precipitated from above ; the air impregnate changed to water, and a deluge of rain followed." The same distinguished Dantophlist calls attention to the passage where the poet refers to the visive power of the mole : — Call to remembrance, reader, if thou e'er Hast on an Alpine height been taken by cloud. Through which thou saw'st no better than the mole Doth through opacous membrane.* * Purgatorio, xvii. 48 Dante as a Naturalist " In the amount of vision here ascribed to the mole," says Barlow, " we have another instance how much Dante's knowledge as a naturalist surpassed that of his contemporaries and successors. Until very lately, the mole was considered to be blind. It was reserved for modern science to demonstrate the accuracy of Dante and the truth of his description. Not only has the mole eyes, and nervous filaments passing to them from the base of the brain, but it can see at least to distin- guish light from darkness, which is all the power of vision the natural habits of the animal require." Barlow points out other passages which forcibly illus- trate the insight of the poet into the mystery of final causes. " In the verses of the Paradiso, when speak- ing of love, he says : — This to the lunar sphere directs the fire. This moves the heart of mortal animals. This the brute earth together knits and binds :* Three physical principles, combustion, vital action, and attraction of cohesion, both of molecules and masses, are expressed in a poetical manner, which almost seems to anticipate in part the results of modern researches i for it matters little by what names things are called, provided we understand what is meant ; and where language is scarcely adequate to convey the whole idea we desire to express, there must always be a surplus sense, which the understanding will entertain according to its capacity." He refers also to the indications of * Paradiso, i. Dante as a Naturalist. 49 the meteoric phenomena of shooting or falling stars and of heat lightning, in that passage where Dante speaks of the fiery vapors which with such speed cut through the serene air at fall of night ;* and to the Southern Cross, which the poet describes in Canto I. of the Purga- torio : — To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind On the other pole attentive, where I saw- Four stars ne'er seen before save by the ken Of the first people. " The principal stars of this constellation," says Barlow, " were known when Dante wrote, and in the description of them here given there is a reality attested by all who have seen them. They were once visible in our northern hemisphere. Without the aid of the telescope they appear as four stars, three of them of the first magnitude. In consequence of the pre- cession of the equinoxes, writes Humboldt, the starry heavens are continually changing their aspect from every portion of the earth's surface. The early races of mankind beheld in the far north the glorious constellation of the southern hemisphere rise before them, which, after remaining long invisible, will again appear in those latitudes after a lapse of thousands olv years. The Southern Cross began to become invisible in 52° 30' north latitude, twenty-nine hundred years before our era, since, according to Galle, this constel- lation might previously have reached an altitude of * Purgatorio, v. 6 50 Dante as a Naturalist more than io°. When it disappeared from the hori- zon of the countries of the Baltic, the great Pyramid of Cheops had already been erected more than five hundred years. Dante, therefore, most truly says that those stars were never seen before save by the first people; meaning by these words not Adam and Eve, as some writers would still have us believe, but the early races which inhabited Europe and Asia." The author to whom we are indebted for the above quotations continues his scientific analysis of the Corn- media^ and, commenting on the following verses, — Mark the sun's heat ; how that to wine doth change. Mixed with the moisture filtered through the vine, — * " It has been supposed," he remarks, " that Dante drew his theory of wine from a passage of Cicero, in his Cato Major de Senectute^ repeated by Galileo three hun- dred years later. But Cicero says no more than what every vine-dresser from the days of Noah was per- fectly aware of, that the sun ripened the grapes, and that his warmth was necessary to the elaboration of their juice. Of the chemical action which then takes place, as also of what occurs in vinous fermentations, neither Cicero nor Dante nor Galileo was aware. But Dante wisely conceived that ' the great minister of nature' acted the chief part in the transmutation, and the poet was right. Without moisture and heat there would be no life. The sun is the great vivifying * Purgatorio, xxv. H2S Patriotism, _jl agent, and the absorption of his rays effects the change which the poet describes ; so that, as modern science has demonstrated, in quaffing the generous liquid thence derived we are actually drinking down sunbeams, and our souls are cheered and warmed by their inward effects as much as our bodily members are comforted by their out- ward radiance." He also alludes to the interesting fact in vegetable physiology, that flowers are only metamor- phosed leaves, the discovery of which is commonly attrib- uted to Goethe, but was first observed by Dante,'and ex- pressed in these words : — " Flowers and other leaves."* Thus Dante was the representative not only of the art and poetry, but also of the science of his age ; and well might Raphael, in his admirable fresco of the Holy Sacrament, which every pilgrim of the beautiful has admired in the galleries of the Vatican, place promi- nent among the popes and the doctors of the Church, then the guardians of science and patrons of art, the noble figure of the poet, radiant with the severe light of philosophy, his glorious head girt with the laurel crown. But genius, acquirements, and accomplishments were, with Dante, subordinate to the duties which bound him to his country. He felt, with Cicero, that devotion to the land of our birth excels and comprehends all other affections ; and this sentiment was early expressed in his life. At the age of twenty-four years we find him in the battle of Campaldino, in which the Florentine * Purgatorlo, xxxii. $2 Florentine Constitution, army, commanded by Corso Donati, the leader of the Guelph party, defeated the Ghibelins of Arezzo. Dante fought vaHantly in the foremost ranks of the cavalry led by Vieri dei Cerchi, who afterwards became the chief of the party of the Bianchi, with which the poet was for a few years associated. He himself al- ludes to this engagement in the Commedia ; and in a letter since lost, but which is recorded by one of his early biographers, he described the battle, the emo- tions which he experienced, the danger he was in, his fears, his anxiety, and his intoxicating joy in the vic- tory. Soon after, he took part in another engagement between the Florentines and the Pisans, in which the former conquered the castle of Caprona. From this time he devoted himself to the Republic, his influence becoming every day more powerful. With the ascendency of the Guelphs, after the de- feat of Manfred, in 1 266, several reforms had been intro- duced, — among them the institution of the Arti or guilds into which the city was divided, the principal of which were the money-changers, the judges and nota- ries, the physicians and apothecaries, the wool-weavers or clothiers, the silk-weavers or mercers, the furriers, and the merchants. Each of the Arti had its consul and gonfalonier e^ or standard-bearer. In 1282 the Priori were instituted, first to the number of three, then of six, and lastly of eight, who, elected by the guilds, had the management of pubHc affairs. In 1292 a new constitution, under the direction of Giano della Bella, He enters Public Life. 53 was adopted, by which the privileges of the Arti were confirmed, the nobles excluded from the administration, and a magistrate under the name of Gonfaloniere di Giustizia was instituted, with the duty of defending the rights of the people. To him a standard was given, and a body-guard of one thousand infantry. In accordance with this constitution, Dante, re- nouncing his position as a nobleman, entered his name in the registers of the physicians and apothecaries, in common with others who, although not belonging to the profession, were engaged in the study of the natu- ral sciences. He was soon intrusted with several foreign missions, and, in the capacity of ambassador, it is said that he visited Siena, Perugia, Venice, Ferrara, Rome, Naples, and Paris. His position in the govern- ment of Florence became so important, that, according to Boccaccio, no envoy from abroad was listened to, no answer to foreign powers returned, no reform in- troduced, no war declared, no peace made, without his counsel and consent. " In him," says the same writer, " popular confidence and hope were centred, and in- deed all human and divine things were reflected." The period in which Dante entered public life was also that in which his poHtical views took a wider range, and his opinions became more settled and more defined. Up to this time his chief thought had been the advance- ment ol: the Guelphs and the welfare of his native city. Born of a Guelph family, educated in that political 6* 54 Change in his Political Fiews, school, and surrounded by the associations and influ- ences of that party, he had thus far been identified with it. He might have regarded the establishment of local freedom as the first step towards national unity ; he might have been dazzled by the splendor of Florence, then the great centre of European civilization. It is certain, however, that in the first years of his career the nationality of Italy had not become a leading idea in his mind ; and if it existed at all, it was undeveloped and confused. But as he advanced in his philosophic and classical studies, and as his experience widened, his intellect more readily comprehended the relations of the national organism ; he discovered, beneath the diversi- ties that separated the different parts of the peninsula, the affinities that connected them together ; and, rising above local partiality and ambition, he grasped the great idea of national unitv, which from that time he never ceased to consider as the corner-stone of the future greatness of Italy. As with the mystical death of Beatrice his soul had undergone a moral transformation, so now his political ideas were subjected to a radical change. He ceased to be a Guelph and a Florentine, and became, as has been well said, the first Italian. But his aspirations were not confined to Italy alone ; he conceived a plan of general organization, which, while it would place his country in an exalted position, would also establish the political union of the race, secure the permanent peace of the world, and result in the general progress of mankind. l^he Monarchia. J^ To develop this fundamental idea, Dante composed his work De Monarchia^ which may be considered the political introduction to the Commedia. Up to a recent date, k has been supposed that Dante composed this book at the period of his exile ; but modern criticism, and particularly the researches of Karl Witte, have shown that that composition belongs to the first de- cade of his public career. Written in the rude Latin of the age, encumbered with scholastic subtilties and mediaeval conceptions, this treatise is a candid, logical, and, at times, eloquent exposition of the political sys- tem of its author. It is divided into three parts ; the first intended to show that mankind must be politically united in order to secure the object of its destiny ; the second, to demonstrate that it belongs to Italy to effect that union ; and the third, to assert the separation and the independence of the State from the Church. The principles which Dante here advocates are so connected with the political ideas expressed in the Divina Commedia^ that it is important to give a brief outline of the work. God is one, says Dante ; nature is one ; mankind is one, — one in its origin, its essence, and its destiny. Civilization should be one, composed of many nations free, yet united in one great confederation, headed by the ancient mistress of the world. Rome was the moral centre of Europe in the time of the empire ; let Italy, the natural heir of Rome, take her place once more among nations. Was not Rome chosen to be the connecting link in the unity of 56 The Monarchia, the race ? Was not the Roman empire destined to be the organ of universal aspiration, and the great leader of cosmopolitical action ? The general causes which contributed to its first establishment, civil wars, wealth, and general decay, in the thirteenth century were still at work ; indeed, they were more potent than before. The restoration of the empire, therefore, was the necessary result of the conditions of the time, and the remedy which an overruling providence had given to the race. And here he mingles legend with historic facts, and draws parallels from Roman history and the Bible. He tells us how, in the same year in which David took the crown of Israel, ^Eneas landed on the coast of Italy ; and as from the family of David the Saviour was born, so the children of ^Eneas were des- tined to conquer the world, in order to establish that social unity which was necessary to the triumph of Christianity. The Saviour Himself, the type of man- kind, acknowledged the supremacy of the empire by being born under the reign of Augustus, and by sub- mitting Himself to the sentence of the imperial courts. Let Rome, therefore, put on once more the mantle of empire, and, surrounding herself with the great intel- lects of the time, let her take the high place of cosmo- politan umpire in all questions arising between nations ; and let mankind, harmonious in the infinite variety of its functions, go forward under her guidance to the conquest of its perfection, which consists in the univer- sal religion of human nature. Dante's Political System, ^"j The arguments advanced by Dante for the establish- ment of Italian supremacy lost their force when Italy ceased to hold the position at the head of contemporary civilization which belonged to her in the thirteenth century. But, apart from this, there is in his concep- tion a breadth and comprehensiveness which entitle the writer of the Monarchia to a place among the reformers of all ages. His plan of social organization presents^an ideal in which the race appears as a great individuality, endowed with immortal life in its collective character, subject to that law of mutual responsibility among its members which is destined at some future time to be- come the bond of all nations. It involves the principle of indefinite progress developing through perpetually extending associations. It embraces the unity of mankind, not as the result of conquest, but of the har- monious distribution of national agencies for the highest common object. It anticipates in some measure, as has already been remarked, the plan adopted by Wash- ington and his compeers in the Constitution of the United States, differing, however, in this, that while the American Republic extends to States geographically and ethnographically integrant parts of the same country, the Italian empire, as proposed by Dante, would have embraced all the world, and have placed Italy, in relation to other nations, as the sun to the planets, whose influ- ence unites them in their harmonious movements, while it gives them free scope in their appointed orbits. In advocating the union of mankind under the lead- y8 Dante's Political Systefji. ership of Italy, Dante did not intend to place other na- tions under her military despotism. The revival of the empire he contemplated was not that of the Asiatic monarchies, neither was it that of Charlemagne or Charles V. His plan, grand in its conception, resting on the basis of liberty, both national and individual, was derived, on the one hand, from ancient Rome, where the emperor was but a citizen charged with the high office of tribune, and with the defence of popular rights against the patricians ; on the other, from the idea of modern governments founded on the political union of municipalities belonging to the same nation. Hence the idea of Dante did not necessarily involve monarchical institutions, as is commonly believed, but simply the concentration of social power into an indi- vidual or collective authority, which should exercise the common sovereignty for the good of the people. Ad- mitting all forms of government, as circumstances might require, the plan of Dante was adapted to all nations, their different characters, traditions, and wants. It was essentially liberal and democratic. A nobleman by birth, we have seen him enter the ranks of the people, and give his cordial support to popular govern- ment. If he occasionally recalls his family origin with pride, he protests that there is no true nobility but that of virtue and genius. He compares aristocracy to a mantle which the shears of time make shorter and shorter ; he asserts that human worth rarely mounts into the branches of genealogic trees ; he bitterly satir- Dante's Political System. 59 Izes the aristocrats of his time who sprang from bar- terers and peddlers ; and he even says that those who have not inherited the virtues of their fathers ought neither to inherit their property. The high value he placed on liberty, making even the empire subordinate to it, we see from the noble tribute which he pays to Cato, the great martyr of the Republic. He calls him the most sacred of courageous men ; he represents him as the guardian of the kingdom of purification, and, kneeling before his august shade, he foretells the great- ness to which he will be raised in the last day. And while he condemns Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar, to the deepest abysses of hell, and exalts Caesar for having seized the standards of the eagle, he carefully notes that he seized them by the will of Rome ^ and mercilessly condemns Curio, his lieuten- ant, to have his tongue forever cut off by the hand of a demon, to be forever renewed, for having urged his chief to cross the Rubicon without awaiting the call of the people. He advocates the same principle when he teaches that the government of nations belongs to philosophy — that is, to wisdom united with the imperial authority — and places the source of law not in the will of rulers, but in that impersonal reason, of which the people are the natural interpreters. Hence he causes Virgil to praise him for his love of liberty, and to ex- claim, while crossing the Stygian lake : — There above How many now hold themselves mighty kings 6o De Vitlgari Eloqi/w. Who here like swine shall wallow in the mire. Leaving behind them horrible dispraise.* And descending deeper into the infernal regions, he points out the tyrants of all ages plunged into a river of blood, held down by demons in the form of centaurs, and guarded by the minotaur, the infamy of Crete, at once a beast and the son of a king, the living symbol of tyranny which feeds on human flesh. f But his political views are not only democratic ; they are deeply impressed with the stamp of nation- ality. This principle, which inspired the Monarchia and the Commedia^ also finds expression in his De Vul- gari Eloquio^ an unfinished work written in Latin, in which the philologic element of the Italian nation is particularly examined. His knowledge of philology, a science of recent origin, was necessarily limited and imperfect ; yet he forcibly expresses the idea of a na- tional language, in opposition both to the local dialects and to the Latin then used by the Church and the upper classes. He clearly alludes to the division of the Eu- ropean languages into several families, as to the bases of distinct nationalities, and attributes a common origin to the Spanish, French, and Italian idioms. His re- marks on the Italian dialects are particularly interesting, as affording the means of comparing the present con- dition of the language with the roots from which it has * Inferno, viii. •j- Inferno, xii., xxviii. ; Purgatorio, i, ; Paradiso, vi., xvi., and alibi, passim. I De Vulgari Eloquio. 6l sprung. These dialects, according to Dante, were fourteen ; and he adds that each of them was so sub- divided, that all together they might reach the number of one thousand. He passes in review the chief of these varieties, and rejects them all, as not having the characteristics of a national language, which he insists does not belong to one or to another city, but is com- mon to all. The multitude of dialects which from time im- memorial had prevailed throughout Italy, explains how, in the absence of a national centre, the Italian had not before appeared in literature. Although the primitive Italian songs are to be referred to the early part of the thirteenth century, it was only from 1220 to 1250 that the language began to be spoken at the court of Frederick II., in Palermo, when, under the auspices of that emperor, it was generally adopted by the Sicilian troubadours. From Sicily the new language soon made its way through the peninsula, and in Tuscany particu- larly it became the tongue of the poets of the thirteenth century, — first among them Guido Guinicelli, Guido Cavalcanti, and others of less note. It was this lan- guage, rough and poor in its vocabulary, unsettled and confused in its construction, which Dante made the vehicle of his thoughts, and which his genius moulded into a degree of perfection it has ever since maintained. While the early writers of English and French litera- ture have no claim to be considered as models of style, the productions of Dante, after nearly six centuries, 7 62 The Prmciple of Nationality. remain the great standard of Italian composition. His language unites the softness of Petrarch with the rich- ness of Boccaccio, and while it combines the harmony and the poHsh of the best writers, it surpasses all in chasteness and vigor. It is emphatically the natioxial tongue, and Italy owes to him not only the first and the grandest expression of her Uving thought, but also the very organ of this expression, the great bond of her national life. Formed by the genius of the poet, he called forth all its harmonies, and caused it to echo in his poem from sphere to sphere, through the invisible universe, a grand paean to the future of his country. Dante not only acknowledged language as the basis of nationality, but he established that principle on the ethnographic character of the people. " When I say," he writes in the Monarchia^ " that mankind may be governed by one ruler, I do not intend to propose that municipalities and municipal laws should originate from one source ; for nations, kingdoms, and cities have a character of their own, which makes it necessary that they should be ruled by different laws." And in the Commedia^ seizing the true idea of national ethno- graphy, he presents the colossal Eagle, symbol of the empire, as splendid in his individuality, as brilliant in the variety of his components, and causes him boldlv to denounce the living usurpers who violate the sove- reignty of nations, and the rulers who allow it to be violated. In the silvery whiteness of the temperate star of Jupiter, the spirits of the princes who rightly I ''The Frinciple of Nationdlity, 63 administered justice in the world appear to him clad in raiment of godly light. In their various and harmo- nious movements they describe certain signs through the heavens, vi^hich make the star seem silver streaked with gold, and which, as they are interpreted, express the divine command : — Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram. And as at the shaking of a lighted brand in- numerable sparks are scattered, a thousand twinkling lustres seem to descend, to ascend, and to form anew ; and he beholds the head and the neck of an Eagle in that streaming fire. Other beaming spirits move forth and take their places ; and soon the Eagle, with open wings, appears, and prominent among the Hving splen- dors which form it he recognizes David, who sang the Holy Spirit's song ; Trajan, who comforted the widow for her lost son ; Hezekiah, who retarded the coming of death by his prayers ; Constantine, who, to yield Rome to the shepherd, passed over to Constantinople, producing evil fruit from good intent ; and William, the good king, whom Sicily bewails. Now the stately bird rears his head and claps his wings, and there comes from his beak a voice, as one sound from many harp- strings, singing the praise of justice. Then the living symbol of the empire makes the heavens resound with his denunciations ; he upbraids Albert of Germany for his usurpation of Bohemia, and Philip the Fair for trampling on the rights of the Flemish and the Italian people ; he attacks Alphonso, whose luxury opened Spain to the Saracens ; and Wenceslaus of Bohemia, 64 T'he Principle of Nationality, whose effeminacy gave that land to the Germans. He loudly menaces The thirsting pride that maketh fool alike English and Scot, impatient of their bound. He hurls his thunderbolts against the Kings of Portu- gal and Norway, Charles, the halver of Naples and Jeru- salem, Frederick of Aragon, James of Majorca and James of Aragon — Who so renowned a nation and two crowns Have bastardized. And, turning to Hungary, whose throne was in dispute between two pretenders, and to Navarre, then under foreign yoke, recognizing the right of revolution, he exclaims : — O blest Hungary ! If thou no longer patiently abidest Thy ill entreating : and O blest Navarre ! If with thy mountainous girdle thou wouldst arm thee. Then, from the small kingdom of Cyprus, his glance pierces through the darkness of the future of Europe, and, lamenting the oppression of the land, he foretells the coming of revolutions and the fall of monarchies : — In earnest of that day, e'en now are heard Wailings and groans in Famagosta*s streets And in Nicotia's, grudging at their beast. Who keepeth even footing with the rest.* * Paradiso, xix., xx. I'he Papacy. 65 In the organization of Italy as a nation, as well as in all matters of government, Dante strongly opposed the interference of the papal Church. The papacy, which as an organized institution had gradually grown out of the necessities of the time, aided by the Carlo- vingians, whose usurpations it had sanctioned, reached the apex of its power in the reign of Gregory VII. " Charlemagne and Otho the Great," says Huillard Breholles, in his Historia Diplomatica Frederici Secundi^ " exercised a real supremacy over the papacy. But Gregory VII., mounting to the very sources of the spiritual and temporal power, indignant at this depend- ence, undertook to subject the empire to the Church, and the Church to the papacy. During the ten years of his pontificate (1073— 1083) ^^ could only accomplish one-half of his designs, and that which he took from the emperor he had the wisdom to transfer to the Church. The struggle which the succc^^v is of Gregory sustained against those of Henry IV., co.i- tinued with alternate reverses and successes, in which the popes never lost sight of the double purpose of their predecessor. They sought more and more to discipline the Church ; to introduce into it a powerful hierarchy ; to separate it from the ties of humanity by suppressing the marriage of priests j to establish, in fact, in this great body an energetic centrahzation, which, proceeding from the brain, might communicate the impulsion through all the members. The submis- sion of the Church to the papacy was, it may be said, 7* 66 I'Jie Papacy. an accomplished fact on the accession of Innocent III. (1198). It then only remained to subject the temporal authority to the Holy See, and, uniting in one hand the two powers, to complete the intention of Gregory VII.'* The same distinguished writer sums up the funda- mental policy of the papacy during the first half of the thirteenth century in the following series of propo- sitions : — " The Church reserves to itself the patrimony of St. Peter, as a visible sign of the universal dominion which belongs to it. The emperor is only its delegate, and consequently its inferior. The empire, which is the highest expression of temporal power, is dependent on the Holy See. The sovereign pontiff, who is superior to the head of the empire, is the monarch of monarchs." This doctrine >vas reaffirmed at the time of Dante by Boniface VIII., in the famous bull Unam Sanctam^ in which he proclaimed that " the Church possesses two swords, the spiritual and the temporal, — one for its own use, the other to be employed in its service by the kings and warriors of the earth ; that the spiritual power as much surpasses in dignity and nobility every terres- trial* power, as spiritual things excel temporal things ; that the spiritual power has the right to judge the tem- poral power, but that the spiritual, at least in its highest expression, which is the pope, can only be judged by God." Familiar with Roman jurisprudence, and fully aware of the baneful effects of the papal government, Dante l^he Papacy. 67 could not but detest such a monstrous theory ; and it was chiefly to refute it that he wrote his Monarchia^ particularly devoted to establish the supremacy of the State on the authority of God and on the principles of human reason, and to the overthrow of the arguments by which the claims of the Church were sustained. It required all the mental superiority and moral force of the writer thus openly to attack the papal power when the bloody code of Innocent III. was in full force ; when the sovereignty of the popes was almost univer- sally admitted as a corollary of the Christian doctrine ; and when Boniface VIII. himself, on the occasion of the Jubilee held in 1300, appeared at the gates of St. Peter's with the imperial crown on his head, preceded by two swords, proclaiming himself to be emperor and pope. His treachery to Dante when ambassador at his court, the persecutions heaped on him when the triumph of the papal party was accomplished, and his secret flight from the Legations, while an exile, srt evidences of the hatred with which he was regarded by the Church. Even twenty years after his death, Car- dinal Beltrando del Pogetto, the legate of John XXII , not only prohibited the reading of the Monarchia under penalty of excommunication (a prohibition which, con- firmed by the Church, is still in force), but he caused it to be burnt in the public square of Bologna ; and strove, although in vain, to have the ashes of the author at Ravenna exhumed and scattered to the winds. The expression of Dante's views on this subject is 68 "The Papacy. not confined to the Monarchia ; it pervades the whole Commedia^ in which, singing the apotheosis of a united Italy, he borrows the lightning of heaven to smite the papacy, her principal foe. There, in the Inferno, through the darkness of eternal night, he points out the fiery abysses into which those popes are plunged who have used spiritual power for the increase of their temporal privileges. The soHtary valleys of the Pur- gatorio echo with laments that the sword is ingrafted on the crook, and that two governments are mixed that ill assort ; and the harmony of the Paradiso is disturbed by the terrible denunciations which the Chief of the Apostles hurls against his successors who had profaned his seat. ^^Emancipation from the papal yoke appears to have been the great object of Dante in composing his poem. We did not believe that the papacy, in its or- ganic constitution, could be reconciled with the liberties of Italy ; accordingly, foretelling the advent of a re- deemer, he did not represent him as a messenger of peace, but as a military chief, armed with an avenging sword, through who>e might the country was to be regenerated. The advent of such a messenger was with him an article of relic ous faith ; and he believed that — The high Providence which did defend Through Scipio the world's empery for Rome, Would not delay its succor.* * Paradiso, xxvii. See also Inferno, xi., xix. ; Purgatorio, xvi., xix,, xxiv, J Paradiso, xxx., and alibi, passim. DatUe as a Religious Reformer, 69 The separation of Church and State being a pre- dominant principle in the Commedia^ the question arises, whether Dante acknowledged the spiritual sovereignty of the papacy, or whether he considered it as an acci- dental and transient feature of genuine Christianity. Looking at the poem in its literal signification, the early commentators, followed by many modern writers, have generally maintained, that while he opposed the temporal power of the popes, and condemned the abuses introduced into the Church, he never over- stepped the bounds of strict orthodoxy, nor ceased to revere in their persons the legitimate successors of St. Peter, the guardians of Christianity, and the foundation of the visible unity of the Church ; while, on the con- trary, others have striven to show that Dante, far from being the poet of papal Catholicism, was the precursor of Luther and of the Reformation, and have claimed for him the first rank among religious reformers. Ugo Foscolo, the most accurate and independent among Italian critics at the beginning of the present century, took this view,* but it has only recently been systematically developed in the learned and ingenious writings of Rossetti.f According to this author, op- position to the papal power in the thirteenth century had so far gained ground as to induce a system of re- pression on the part of the Church, which culminated * Ugo Foscolo. " Discorso sul testo del poema di Dante." f G. Rossetti. " Sullo Spirito antipapale che produsse la Riforma e sua segreta influenza suUa letteratura d' Europa." See also his " Com- mento della Divina Commedia." yd Dante as a Religious Reformer, in the massacre of the Albigenses, ordered by Innocent III., and carried into execution by Simon de Montfort. The Inquisition, established by the same pope, affords further evidence that the public mind was freeing itself from the intellectual servitude of the preceding centuries. The Waldenses and other religious sects, which had either survived the destruction of those heretics or risen from their ashes, had continued the opposition : and in the time of Dante it was chiefly maintained by the order of the Templars, who, since their establishment in the East, had rapidly increased in numbers, wealth, and power, and formed a vast and formidable organization which extended throughout Europe. Their doctrines, expressed in symbols and rites chiefly derived from the East, centred in the great idea of liberty, symbolized by the sun. This Order at length became so obnoxious to the Church, that Clement V. determined on its destruction, which he accomplished with the aid of PhiHp the Fair. The grand master and other leading Templars were sud- denly seized, put to torture, and burned at the stake ; while the Order itself was abolished by the pope throughout the world. The principal poets of the time, according to Ros- setti, either in communication with the Templars or bound together in secret associations, took a prominent part in this struggle. They adopted symbols and alle- gories, chiefly drawn from the language of love, in which they expressed their ideas of social and religious H?s Religious Ideas. 7^ reform ; by which they were able to communicate with each other, and to make themselves understood by the initiated. Thus the love of Hberty, symbolized by the poets in the love of ideal women, was nourished and kept alive ; and thus Dante, one of the principal leaders in that movement, wrote the Commedia^ the esoteric Bible of the Templars, containing their prin- cipal doctrines and aspirations. Without entering into any criticism of Rossetti's theory, it may be said that no positive evidence exists of the participation of Dante in any organized con- spiracy against the papacy. Indeed, he so openly and boldly condemns that institution, as far at least as re- gards its temporal authority, that the possibility of an esoteric interpretation seems excluded by the text of the poem. His words on this subject are so clear and intelligible, that Ugo Foscolo suggests that the Corn- media could not have been published before his death, as it would have exposed him to greater dangers than those which he actually incurred. At the same time, his expressions on the subject of the papacy as a spir- itual power seem to indicate that while he recognized it as an accomplished fact, he strove to make it sub- servient to the high moral and political purposes which he had in view. Accordingly, he not only admits the fundamental distinction between the temporal and spir^ itual authority, but he insists that while the former be- longs to the emperor, the latter belongs to the pope ; the two being the suns which are destined to cast their 72 His Religious Ideas, light from Rome over the kingdom of the world as well as over that of God.* A glance at the religious ideas of the poet, which are so closely connected with his political system, seems necessary to a full under- standing of the poem. Dante was eminently a Christian, believing that only through Christianity could the world be regenerated. This idea pervades all his writings, and is the predom- inating spirit of the Commedia^ which, as he himself says, was chiefly intended for the moral education of the race. He accepted also, to some extent, the form under which Christianity manifested itself in his time, when the mission of the papal Church was far from being closed. His moral sense was doubtless shocked by the scandals which had penetrated into that institu- tion ; but he was by no means blind to the genuine elements of religion which it contained, or to the salu- tary influence which still it exerted. He could not fail to be attracted by its metaphysical dogmas, its symbol- ism, the morality of most of its precepts, the aesthetic beauty of its worship, and the heroic virtues and the self-sacrifice which it had inspired. But while he re- vered what was worthy in Cathohcism, he never recognized the divine right it asserted over the human conscience, which involves the destruction of all indi- vidual sovereignty, the birthright of every rational being. Had he admitted such pretensions, it would have been idle to insist on the separation of the State * Purgatorio, xvi. Hi's Religious Ideas. 73 from the Church, which, as the popes at all times have rightly claimed, is the logical antithesis of that subjuga- tion of the human reason to their authority, which they so strenuously assert ; and which implies the negation of the highest principles inherent to the moral nature of man, and which form the basis of all progress in individual and social life. With Dante, therefore, the spiritual supremacy of the Church consists in the supremacy of that moral in- fluence which the popes at an early period had obtained through their personal virtues, rather than from any prerogative bestowed on them from on high. The spiritual sovereignty he advocated was not that of Gregory VII., Innocent III., or Boniface VIII., but, as he expressly says, that of Linus, Cletus, Sextus, Callixtus, and Urban, all belonging to an age ante- cedent to the fifth century, when the power of the Holy See consisted in the virtue and sanctity of the pontiffs, whose lives were noble examples of hu- mility and poverty, and who, far from claiming juris- diction over the Empire and the Church, considered their mission restricted to the exercise of moral influence alone, and themselves subjects' of the civil law. It was this suprernacy that Dante wished to secure, when, on the death of Clement V., he wrote to the cardinals, urging them to elect an Italian pope, who, by returning the papal see from Avignon to Rome, should bring it under the influence of Italian civilization, and restore it to the purity of the Gospel. 1 74 His Religious Ideas. The existing Church he personifies as the accursed she-wolf which prostitutes itself to many animals in wedlock vile, and corrupts Christianity, making it 'A worse than idolatry. He satirizes the claim of the \ popes to infallibility even at the expense of histQ|Hcal vl truth ; he sneers at their assumed privilege of pardomfig sins committed for the advancement of papal interests ; he places Cato, a pagan and a suicide, as guardian of the kingdom of expiation, and spares Manfred, although an excommunicated enemy of the Church ; he calls the papacy a cursed flower, which has turned the shepherd to a wolf, and has made both sheep and lambs to go astray ; he laments that the Gospel and the great teach- ers are cast aside, and that the popes and the cardinals never journey in their thought to Nazareth ; and, finally, he proclaims that the chair of St. Peter, although oc- cupied by a legitimate pope, is vacant in the sight of God.* Nor are the passages cited by commentators in proof of his orthodoxy by any means conclusive. He, indeed, professes reverence to the highest kevs, but he never asserts that they are the only keys of heaven. He regards the. first shepherd as a moral guide, but he sub- ordinates him to the authority of the Old and the New Testament. He admits many, perhaps most, of the dogmas of the Catholic Church, but he never recognizes that which is the basis of the Catholic system, the infal- libility of the Church, involving its exclusive possession * Inferno, i., xi., xxvii. ; Purgatorio, i., iii. ; Paradise, ix., xxvii. H2S Religious Ideas. 75 of supernatural truth, and the consequent condemnation of all who die out of its pale. He believes in a Church, but his Church is as wide as humanity ; it embraces all creeds and doctrines, the good and the great of all ages, the illustrious pagans as well as the martyrs and apos- I ties. This Church he symbolizes in the chariot which \ appears to him in the terrestrial paradise, drawn by the Gryphon, half eagle and half lion, — the God-man, sur- mounted by Beatrice, surrounded by the great teachers of religion, and the nymphs representing the Christian and moral virtues. It is this Church which he beholds transformed into the papal monster, an object of scan- dal and shame, and which he feels himself called to restore to its primitive purity, when he represents him- self as charged with this mission by Beatrice before she reveals to him the mysteries of heaven ; or when, sum- moned before the council of the holy men of the Old and the New Testament, he is examined on his faith and consecrated as a religious reformer by St. Peter. In words borrowed from St. Paul, he speaks of this calling, of his hardships, and his weariness, and of the glories and revelations from which he derives comfort and hope.* As men, governnients, and forms of religion, in the * mind of Dante, were subordinate to the great idea of nationality, so it was with political parties. It has been * Inferno, xix. ; Purgatorio, xxx., xxxi., xxxii., xxxiii. 5 Paradiso, v., xxiv., XXV. 76 T^he Bianchi and Neri. seen that on the accession of Charles of Anjou to the throne of Naples, the Guelphs became permanently es- tablished in power throughout the peninsula. Soon, however, owing to jealousies and ambitions, and to new issues arising from the conditions of the country, that party became divided into two factions, reviving the old antagonism between the plebeians and the patricians which had before manifested itself in the Guelphs and Ghibehns. In Florence these factions were led by the two rival families of the Cerchi and the Donati, whose names were adopted by their followers. The Cerchi, called also the popolani m'lnuti^ preserving the democratic principle originally represented by the Guelphs, had abandoned the support of the papacy, which a bitter experience had shown could not be reconciled with Italian liberty, and had thus joined the Ghibelins. The Donati, or the popolani grossi^ on the other 'hand, remained faithful to the papal interest, but strove to establish in the government a new aristocratic class which had arisen from the increase of wealth and com- merce. It was to crush the growing influence of the popolani grossi that the revolution of Giano della Bella had taken place, which had resulted in the success of the popu- lar party, and in the adoption of a more liberal constitution. Events soon occurred, however, which greatly com- plicated the condition of parties. The neighboring city of Pistoja, like Florence, had become distracted by the division of the Guelphs into two factions, which took the names of Bianchi and Neri^ from rival branches of T'he Bianchi and Neri, 77 the ancient family of the Cancellieri, descended from the first and the second wife of one of its' chiefs. From Bianca, the first wife, the Bianchi had taken their name ; while the other party, in a spirit of oppo- sition, assumed the denomination of Neri. These two families, one represented by Guglielmo, the other by Bertacca Cancellieri, were the centre of the political agitation which prevailed in Pistoja. Lore, a young son of Guglielmo, playing one day with Petieri, a son of Bertacca, had slightly wounded his companion, and on his return home was sent by his father to apologize to the parents of the injured boy. Bertacca, an iras- cible and cruel man, refused to listen to any excuse, but caused Lore to be seized and one of his hands cut off^. Thus bleeding and dismembered, the boy returned to his father, who at once called upon his friends and allies to aid him in avenging the inhuman deed. A sanguinary engagement followed, in which many on both sides were killed and wounded. Riot followed riot, and civil war became permanent, when Florence, the head of the Guelph League, to which Pistoja be- longed, summoned the leaders of both parties, and confined them within the territory of the repubHc. But this new element only added fuel to the fire which already rage;l there. The rival chieftains of Pistoja allied themselves with the contending parties of Flor- ence, which now assumed the names of Bianchi and Neri, and the war was renewed with added fury. While Dante sought to reconcile the contending fac- 8* ^8 rieri dei Cerchi and Cor so Donati. tions, he naturally inclined toward the Bianchi, whose policy coincided, to some extent, with his own, and in whose ranks were some of his best friends. Among these, he was particularly attached to Vieri dei Cerchi, the chief of the party, a man of plebeian origin, of great wealth, accumulated by personal energy in commercial enterprise, valiant, ambitious, courteous, and attractive. The leader of the cavalry at the battle of Campaldino, Vieri had displayed great bravery, when, being required to select twelve horsemen for the assault, he had him- self ridden forward, with his son and nephew by his side, and, turning to his troops, had said : — " We our- selves shall make the charge ; but any one of you may show his devotion to his country by joining us ;" words which brought Dante to his side among the number of those who volunteered for the charge, which was made with brilliant success. Beside Vieri, the Bianchi recognized as one of their chiefs Guido Cavalcanti, the bosom friend of Dante, a nobleman, a warrior, a poet, and a philosopher. The Neri, on the other hand, were led by Corso Donati, who, as has been said, commanded the Floren- tine army at Campaldino, and was brother to Forese and Piccarda, valued friends of the poet. " Corso," says Villani, " was a valorous knight, a good speaker, a most acute statesman, comely and of graceful carriage, but a worldly man and a conspirator, who, for the sake of attaining state and lordship, entered into many scandalous practices." Dino Compagni calls him the A Dinner-party. yg Catiline of Florence, a shrewd, bold partisan, a friend of great lords, and an enemy of the people. Goaded by the overbearing violence of Corso, and the high- handed insults which he and his followers inflicted on the lower classes, the Florentines had, under the gui- dance of Giano della Bella, infused a stronger spirit of democracy into their constitution, and armed themselves anew against the aristocratic party. Apart from the hostility of Dante to the principles of Corso Donati, he had personal motives which estranged him from that leader. Haughty and proud himself, he could ill tol- erate that imperious aristocrat, to whom, although in- ferior in social position, he was so superior in moral and intellectual attainments. Corso, too, was the mortal enemy of Guido Cavalcanti, whom he had attempted treacherously to put to death, and the poet and other friends had organized themselves into an armed com- pany for his protection. He thus found himself an object of hatred to that demagogue, and he was soon destined to feel the power of his revenge. Although the feud between the Bianchi and Neri had been for some time gathering strength, no important collision, up to the year 1300, seems to have taken place, and, to some extent, the civilities of common life continued to be exchanged between them. Villani re- lates that at a dinner-party given by Vieri dei Cerchi, in that year. Lady Filippo of the Bianchi was asked by the hostess to take her seat beside Lady Donati of the Neri. Messer Vieri jestingly remarked to his wife that she 8o Dante Supreme Magistrate. * should have placed some one between them, as the ladies did not agree. This gave great offence to Lady Donati, who, with some resentful words, was in the act of leaving the room, when the host, distressed at hav- ing thus unintentionally offended the lady, rushed to her side, begged her pardon, and gently taking her arm, urged her to return. But Lady Donati, crimson with rage, by that act considered herself still further in- sulted. This conduct on her part provoked a severe retort from Messer Vieri. The husband demanded satisfaction ; words were followed by blows. The first blood was shed j this called again for blood. A few days later, during the spring festival, a band of young men, belonging to the Bianchi, made their appearance on horseback in the streets, to witness the public games. They were attacked by another band of the Neri. An engagement followed, in which many on both sides were wounded. Another outbreak soon occurred between Guido Cavalcanti and Corso Donati and their followers, and Florence was distracted by riot and violence. On the 15th of June, 1300, the same year in which he began the composition of his great poem, after a terrible conflict which had endangered the city, Dante, then thirty-five years of age, was elected one of the Priori, to whom the administration of public affairs was intrusted. Of his colleagues in office little record re- mains ; but it is known that his uprightness, energy. New Complications, 8l and genius soon placed him at the head of the govern- ment, and threw upon him the sole responsibility. Although inclined towards the Bianchi, he held himself above all parties, which he strove to pacify and to unite. Finding, however, all attempts at conciliation fail, con- vinced that the safety of Florence could only be secured by her deliverance from the turbulent leaders of both factions, and indignant at an attempt of the Neri to overthrow the legitimate authorities, he resolved, by a decisive blow, to strike at the root of the evil. He summoned the people to the square della Signoria, and caused his colleagues to sign with him an ordinance by which the principal leaders of the two parties were banished from the city. This was proclaimed and car- ried into execution, and Florence was at last delivered from the machinations and threats of these violent par- tisans. The boldness of the act was equalled by its impartiality ; for among the exiles there was not only Corso Donati, his bitter enemy, but Guido Cavalcanti, his best friend. It is true that the latter was soon par- doned and permitted to return, although he returned only to die. The republic now enjoyed comparative tranquillity, and a period of peace and order seemed about to open. But this calm was of short duration. The Neri who remained in Florence, as well as those who had been expelled, refused to be reconciled with the new con- dition, which consolidated the power in the hands of their rivals, and they began to conspire both at home 82 He is sent Ambassador to Rome, and abroad. Events occurred in the peninsula at this time which they hastened to turn to their advantage, and which greatly contributed to raise their hopes. Boniface VIII. had prevailed on Philip the Fair to un- dertake an expedition into Sicily, in order to overthrow the Ghibelin power represented by Frederick of Ara- gon, who had just then ascended the throne. Philip had placed his own brother, Charles de Valois, in com- mand of the expedition, to whom the pope had prom- ised the crown of the Eastern Empire. While Corso Donati was in Rome, urging the pontiff to induce the French prince to turn his arms against Florence, and to deliver her from the rule of the Bianchi, other prominent men of the Neri were in Bologna, where Charles held his court, striving to obtain the same object. The Bianchi, becoming aware of this conspiracy, dispatched a delegation to Rome for the purpose of counteracting the schemes of their rivals ; and Dante was appointed chief of the embassy. Aware of the weakness of his colleagues, and of the necessity of his presence both in Florence and in Rome, he at first hesitated to accept the mission, saying : — " If I go, who is there to stay ? and if I stay, who is there to go ?" He decided, however, to go. Boniface received the embassy with marked cordiality, urged the necessity of a reconciliation between the contending parties, and, dismissing the two other ambassadors, whom he had no cause to fear, he begged Dante to remain in Rome to T^he Neri in Power. 83 complete the negotiations. Meantime he treacherously ordered Charles de Valols to enter Florence, ostensibly as a peace-maker, but in reaHty invested with authority to overthrow the existing government, and re-estabHsh the Neri. This order was carried out on the ist of No- vember, 1 30 1, when Charles entered the city at the head of his army. At first he proclaimed that he had come to bring the olive-branch of peace, and to recon- cile the opposing parties. The historian Dino Com- pagni, a Bianco himself, was charged with the negotia- tions between the two factions, and the organization of a government in which they should each have an equal share. But the claims of the Neri were so exorbitant, that Dino, in his record of these events, declares that he soon abandoned in disgust all hope of pacification, and that his moral sentiment was so shocked by the plans of the leaders of that party, that, protesting that he would not play the role of Judas, he withdrew from the con- ference. Meantime Corso DonatI, still in exile, had learned that his return would not be unwelcome to Charles, and, under cover of night, he arrived at the gates of the city, where he was met by his partisans. Inflamed by his violent harangues, and led on by him, they en- tered, set free the prisoners, drove the Priori from the palace, set fire to the city, and, amidst the conflagration, gave themselves up to robbery, rapine, and murder. These orgies lasted for five days ; half the city was destroyed, and the people, whose leaders had been mur- 84 Dante Exiled. dered or had escaped, remained impotent and terrified spectators of the awful scenes. In the midst of the burning ruins of Florence the Neri established a gov- ernment of their own, at the head of which, under the auspices of Charles and Corso, they placed Cante dei Gabrielli, a violent and unscrupulous demagogue. While these events were occurring Dante was still in Rome, detained there by the artifices of the pope. His house had been pillaged and burned, and his lands given up to devastation. A sentence of temporary banishment was soon passed against him, on the ground of his opposition to the advent of Charles de Valois, and also of his having illegally taken money in the dis- charge of his office ; a charge, however, which he never condescended to notice, and of which his biographers have fully exonerated him. Failing to pay the fine which had been imposed upon him by the first sentence, a month after it was not only confirmed, but his property confiscated and his exile made perpetual, under penalty of being burnt alive if he were ever found within the territory of the repubhc. Thus betrayed by Boniface, and the victim of the conspiracy of Corso and his ad- herents, Dante, at the age of thirty-six, found himself deprived of the considerable property which he had in- herited from his father, reduced almost to beggary, torn from his family, and an exile from the city of his birth, which he loved with an intense devotion, and where he had hoped to receive the poet's crown. H2S Efforts to Return, 85 Leaving Rome, he came to Siena, where he first heard of the sentence passed against him. He then visited Arezzo, Bologna, and Forli, everywhere arousing the companions of his misfortune, and calling them to the rescue of Florence. " Florence," he said, " we must recover ; Florence for Italy, and Italy for the world." The exiles held a council in the territory be- tween Siena and Arezzo, where the Ghibelins, now almost entirely identified with the Bianchi, were still in possession of fortresses and castles. They established a provisional government, in which the poet held a promi- nent place ; they organized an army, and appointed Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi, Podesta of Forli, to command it. Meanwhile, Dante visited the different courts favor- able to their cause, and succeeded in obtaining several thousand recruits, particularly from Bartolommeo della Scala, Lord of Verona, the chief of the Ghibelins, and his ardent friend. In 1303 an attempt was made to take possession of Florence ; but the army of the exiles was defeated, and the prisoners mercilessly slaughtered by the Guelphs. Nor did the second attack, led by Alessandro della Ro- mella, prove more successful. The vanguard of the united Bianchi and Ghibelins penetrated far into the city, but soon, repulsed by a stronger force, a panic en- sued, which ended in a general flight. Dante was pres- ent at neither of these battles ; but he became greatly disheartened at the failures, which he, to a great extent, attributed to the cowardice of his allies, from whom he 9 86 Dante not a Partisan. grew more and more estranged, until finally he withdrew from all parties. Indeed he had never been a partisan. Endowed with the sterling qualities of the statesman, and inspired by a noble patriotism, he regarded all organizations as means to an end ; and if he took part with them, it was not to become the slave of their traditions or of their preju- dices, but only to make them subservient to higher aspi- rations. Hence his transition from one party to another ; his partial adherence, first to the Guelphs, next to the Bianchi and the Ghibelins ; his endeavors to reconcile them into one great national party ; and, finally, his abandonment of all, far from indicating inconsistency, as has been asserted, were the result of his intense devo- tion to his country, and his untiring pursuit of whatever course he believed would best promote the highest interests of Italy. In his poem he often speaks of his independence of all parties. He causes his teacher, Brunetto Latini, to predict that he " shall be craved with keen hunger by all factions ;" and his ancestor, Cacca- guida, to foretell, that of all the calamities which will befall him, that which shall gall him most will be the worthless and vile company amidst which he will be thrown.* This lofty sentiment of personal independence led him, while passing judgment on his contemporaries, to distribute rewards and punishments according to their claims as patriots, not as partisans ; for patriotism he * Inferno, xv. ; Paradiso, xvii. Hn Wanderings. 87 esteemed as the highest virtue among those which elevate and endear life, and treason the most hideous crime v^hich can deform human character, surpassing even parricide in its nature and dire effects : and so he con- demns traitors to eternal misery, and, w^hether Guelphs or Ghibelins, shows them, side by side, imprisoned with Lucifer in the frozen lake of Antenora, in the lowest depths of hell.* From the time of his banishment from Florence to that of his death, a period of about twenty years, we find Dante wandering from city to city, from monastery to monastery, from castle to castle, often finding hos- pitality from leaders of all parties, but always smarting under the sting of his own misfortunes and those of his country. In 1303 he found his first refuge and place of rest at the court of Bartolommeo della Scala, in Verona, who received him with such courtesy and kind- ness, that, as he says, " his granting always foreran his asking. "t Not long after, he appears at Bologna, occu- pied in study ; next in Padua, where he received from his friend Giotto, then engaged in painting the chapel of the Madonna dell' Arena, the most generous and cor- dial hospitality. While in that city, he became the in- timate friend of Madonna Pietra, of the noble family of the Scrovigni, — a relation which has been regarded by his biographers as having been of a more tender character. Here he summoned to him his eldest son, * Inferno, xxxii. f Paradiso, xvii. 88 He Continues his P oem. Pietro, then fourteen years of age, whose education he desired to direct. After two years' residence alter- nately at Bologna and Padua, we find him in Lunigiana, at the court of Franceschino Malaspina, who ruled that State in common with his two nephews, Conradin and Morello, distinguished for their warlike deeds and schol- arly accomplishments, as well as for their sincere attach- ment to the poet. While Dante was still in Lunigiana, a circumstance occurred which led to the continuance of the Commedia^ which had been laid aside in the excitement of his pub- lic life, and his subsequent exile. During the disorders which followed the entrance of Charles de Valois into Florence, in 1301, when the house of the poet was pillaged and burned. Gemma, his wife, foreseeing the impending danger, caused some coffers, which contained, among other valued objects, the first cantos of the poem, to be removed and secreted in a safe place. Five years after that event, when the violence of pas- sion had somewhat subsided, and more moderate men were at the head of the government. Gemma, finding it difficult to support and educate her numerous family by her own hands, sought to recover some of the confis- cated property ; and searching in the coffers for the deeds relating to it, found the manuscript of the first seven cantos of the Inferno. They were shown to sev- eral scholars, and their merit was at once recognized. They were sent to Morello Malaspina, with the request that he would use his influence with the poet to induce Gemnia^ his IVifc. 89 him to complete the work. Dante had regarded it as lost, and abandoned all thought of its completion ; but he said, that since God had been pleased to preserve and restore it to him, he would endeavor to comply with the wishes of his friends. He accordingly devoted himself to the work, and re-wrote the cantos already composed. Since the world is thus partly indebted to the wife of Dante for the preservation and the completion of his great poem, it may not be out of place here to refer to the charges brought against her by some of his biogra- phers, who assert that she proved a second Xantippe to him, and that his matrimonial connection was most un- fortunate. About 1293 Dante had married Gemma, of the family of the Donati, then politically connected with the Allighieri. He had lived with her but about seven years, when, in 1301, he was driven from Florence, and, it appears, never saw her again. Of the unhappi- ness of his marriage, however, there is no evidence, other than that the poet never alludes to his wife in his works, nor does it appear that he ever made any effort to induce her to join him in his exile. But neither did he speak of his children nor of his mother, whom he tenderly loved ; his silence probably arising from the custom of the time, by which it was considered improper to bring before the public matters of a purely domestic charac- ter. On the other hand, his apparent neglect in having lived so long apart from her, finds abundant justification in his restricted circumstances, the unsettled condition of his life, which involved the necessity of constant 90 H?'s Fhit to Monte Corvo. \ changes, the numerous family of children dependent on her maternal protection, and, above all, in his unwaver- ing hope of a speedy return to his home. Considering, then, the affectionate care she took of his family, pro- viding for them even by the unaccustomed labor of her own hands, the devotion which prompted her to save his manuscripts and a part of his property from destruc- tion, it would seem that the charges preferred against her are entirely groundless. It is true that his marriage, by placing him in relation with his political opponents, the Donati, may have caused him serious embarrass- ment, and the representations alluded to doubtless had their origin in this cause. We trace Dante in his various wanderings up the valley of the Adige, as far as the Alps of the Tyrol ; to the castle of the Ubaldini, in the mountains of the Casentino ; to the monastery of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellana, on the Apennines of Umbria, where a cham- ber is still shown in which it is said he composed a part of his poem ; to the castle of Colmollaro, near Gubbio, where he received the hospitality of Messer Bosone, a Ghibelin leader, his pupil and commentator ; next to Udine, where he was entertained by Pagano della Torre, the Patriarch of Aquileja ; and to the picturesque castle of Tolmino, in the Friuli, where a rock is still pointed out in the shadow of which he used to sit. He visited also the monastery of Santa Croce del Corvo, situated on the shore of the Gulf of Spezzia, towards the borders of the dominions of the Malaspinas, H2S Visit to Monte Corco. 91 where the most advanced point of Monte Caporione extends into the sea. His biographers relate that, in 1308, the hermits of St. Augustine, who Hved there, one day saw a stranger of sad aspect, somewhat bent, as if oppressed by the burden of many sorrows, standing on that lovely spot, and gazing with kindling eyes at the charming picture which lay before him, encircled by a distant horizon, overhung by the blue sky reflected in the bluer sea. One of the monks approached and kindly addressed him ; but the stranger, absorbed in the contemplation of the scene, made no reply. When again addressed and asked what he wished, sadly turning his eyes towards the speaker, he answered, peace. Fra Ilario, the Superior of the hermits, struck by his countenance, asked him aside ; and learning who he was, manifested for him great sympathy and reverence. Dante then, taking from his breast a manuscript, presented it to the monk, say- ing : — " Here is a portion of my work. I leave it to you as a memorial of my respect, and I would ask that you would send a copy of it to Uguccione della Fag- giuola, the Lord of Pisa, one of the three to whom I desire to dedicate the poem." On opening the book, Fra Ilario wondered how the poet could have written a work on such high subjects in the popular tongue ; to which Dante answered, that he had begun the poem in Latin, but that he had finally decided to adopt the lan- guage which was more in conformity with the intelli- gence of the people. The monk, on sending the manu- script to Uguccione, wrote an account of this interview. 92 ' H?'s Visit to Paris, and added, that of the other parts of the Comme di a ^ the Purgatorio would be found with Morello Malaspina, and the Paradiso with Frederick of Aragon, King of Sicily.* It appears, however, that afterwards, disap- pointed by the policy pursued by that king, Dante with- held the contemplated dedication, and transferred it to Can Grande della Scala, Lord of Verona, the faith- ful champion of the national cause. The last thirteen cantos of the Paradiso, however, remained undiscovered for several months after the death of the poet, when his son, Jacopo, found them at Ravenna, in the house where he died ; having had a dream, in which, accord- ing to Boccaccio, the luminous ghost of his father, clad in white garments, appeared to him, and pointed out the place where they had been hidden. Soon after his visit to Monte Corvo, Dante was in Paris, a city which had long been frequented by Italian scholars and merchants. He devoted himself to the study of theology at the University, and attended, among others, the lectures of Sigier, a celebrated theo- logian of the time, and a disciple of Averrhoes, who appears to have taught very bold doctrines. The poet alludes to these lectures as being given in the Fico degli strami^ so called from the straw on which the students sat, in the absence of benches, which were not yet in- troduced into the schools. He took different degrees * Although some modern critics regard the letter of Fra Ilario as spu- rious, its authenticity has been established by others, particularly by Carlo Troya, in his Veltm Alkgorico. T^he E?nperor Henry Seventh. 93 in theology, and on a certain public occasion, according to the prevailing custom, he discussed extemporaneously all questions on fourteen different subjects, and defended his positions against as many learned doctors. Ad- mitted with honor to the highest degree, he was obliged to renounce it for the want of means necessary to pay the fee. Boccaccio asserts that from Paris Dante passed into England, then ruled by Edward II., and another biographer adds that he visited Oxford. In 1308, on the death of Albert, Henry, Count of Luxemburg, was elected King of the Romans and Emperor of Germany, under the name of Henry VII. His election was confirmed by Clement V. ; and hav- ing received the imperial crown at Aix-la-Chapelle, at the hands of the Archbishop of Cologne, and settled the disputes among his German barons, he set out for Italy, where for nearly sixty years the imperial eagles had not been seen. Arrived at Lausanne, in the sum- mer of 1 3 10, at the head of a small army, he remained there to await re-enforcements, and to receive the dele- gations sent bv the Italian cities to pay him hom- age. In the following October he crossed Mount Cenis, visited Turin and Asti, where he was greeted with demonstrations of loyalty, and reached Milan, where, on the day of the Epiphany, 131 1, he received the iron crown. Here, and in the other cities through which he passed, he appointed vicars, recalled exiles, and strove to reconcile all parties. His eagerness in 9^ Dante's Hopes Revive. this respect was so great, and the favor he showed to the Guelphs so marked, that the Ghibelins complained that he was kinder to his enemies than to his friends. We may judge of the high esteem in which the new emperor was held by the Italian people from the testi- mony of Dino Compagni and Villani, two contempo- rary chroniclers. Dino describes him as descending from city to city, establishing peace and good-will, as though he had been an angel of God ; and Villani, having given at some length the history of Henry, says : — " Let not the reader marvel that we have con- tinued the history of his deeds without interruption. This we have done for two reasons ; one, because all Christian people, and even the Greeks and Saracens, watched with great interest his progress and fortune, and there was little to observe elsewhere ; the other, because in so short a time he experienced such great vicissitudes. He was good, wise, just, and gracious;, honest, brave, and fearless ; a good Christian, and of modest lineage. He had a magnanimous heart, and was much feared and held in awe. He followed also this supreme virtue, — he was never disheartened by adversity, nor elated by success." The advent of Henry in Italy could not but excite a lively interest in the hearts of all patriots, who saw in his triumph the dawn of a new era for their country. To Dante, particularly, that event was the glorious promise of the restoration of Italian unity, and all his hopes and enthusiasm revived. He was in France Florence plots against the Emperor. 95 when news reached him of the emperor's descent into Italy, and he hastened at once to join him. He ad- dressed a letter " to Robert, King of Naples, to Fred- erick, King of Sicily, to the Senators of Rome, to the Dukes, Marquises, and Counts, and to all the people of Italy," which shows with what exaltation of mind he regarded the course of the emperor. " Behold now," says he, " the acceptable time in which the signs of consolation and of peace arise. Truly the new-born day begins to diffuse its light ; the aurora now appears in the East which dissipates the darkness of our misery, and the heavens, resplendent with tranquil clearness, strengthen the predictions of the nations. We who have long dwelt in the desert shall behold the expected joy, for the peaceful sun will arise, and slothful justice, which had retreated in darkness to its utmost limit, will return in all its splendor." Urging his countrymen to receive the emperor as the betrothed of Italy and the glory of the nation, he never forgets his own dignity nor the dignity of his country. " Rouse yourselves," exclaims he, " like freemen, and recollect that the em- peror is only your first minister ; that he is made for you, and not you for him." Non enim gens propter Re- gem^ sed Rex propter gentem. But while most of the Italian cities, incited by Dante, arrayed themselves under the banner of Henry, the Florentines were busily plotting against him. They had, indeed, at first, shown some disposition to accept his rule, in common with the other cities of the Tuscan 96 Dante's Indignation, League ; but, owing to the intrigues of powerful Guelphs, of Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, and of Clement V., they now refused allegiance to him, de- clined to receive his delegates, and at last, to avoid the consequences of their vacillating policy, they took measures to resist his progress. They fortified Flor- ence, formed an alliance with other discontented cities, and, in order to occupv the emperor elsewhere and prevent his approach, they incited revolts in the north- ern provinces. At this policy, so fatal to the cause of Italy, the grief and indignation of Dante were extreme. After an interview with the emperor, in which he had enforced upon him the necessity of bold and energetic measures, he retired to the quiet solitude of Castle Porciano, in the Casentino, where he watched events with intense anxiety. Henry VII. meantime, from the influence of bad advisers, or from his own irresolute character, wasted his time and resources in overcoming the lesser obstacles in his way, and failed to strike the decisive blow. Dante now (April 16, 131 1), from his retreat, addressed an eloquent letter to him, in which he im- plored him, in his own name and in that of his com- panions in exile, to put an end to his temporizing policy, and to march at once on the city which was the fruitful source of evil, " the viper which turned its fangs against the bosom of its mother, the contaminated sheep which spread disease among the flock, the inces- tuous Myrrha who delighted in unholy connections." \ Dante in Genoa and Pisa. gj He insists that Florence is the key of the position, the possession of which will involve the submission of the other cities ; that his delays will bring certain ruin on him and on the cause, and ; assuming the language of an equal rather than that of a subject to his sovereign, he says : — " Why dost thou stop half way, as if the empire lay in Liguria ? Art thou he that shall come, or do we look for another ?" Henry had just received this letter when the revolt of Brescia caused him to march on that city. Having previously recalled the exiled Guelphs and reconciled them with the Ghibelins, then in power, he had thought himself secure. But they were no sooner re-established than they drove out their rivals, made an alliance with Florence and Bologna, and openly rose against his au- thority. The emperor now laid siege to Brescia (May 14, 131 1), but, as Dante had predicted, this proved a disastrous step. The imperial troops were decimated by disease ; and, while several months were lost in the siege, Florence gained time to prepare for resistance. Brescia at length surrendered (September 26, 131 1), and the emperor forthwith departed for Genoa, where he was joined by the poet. His biographers relate that while in that city, Dante was the object of serious out- rages on the part of the people, with whom he had dealt severely in his poem, particularly with Branca Doria, the most powerful among the nobility, whose soul he had described as in hell for having murdered 98 '^ke Emperor before Florence. his father-in-law, while his body, still on earth, was animated by a demon.* The emperor, meanwhile, having recruited his army, and furnished himself with additional means for carrying on the war, on the 12th of February, 13 1 2, accompanied by Dante and other prominent exiles, sailed for Pisa with a fleet of thirty galleys. After spending a few months in that city, in order to complete his preparations, Henry, at the head of his army, left for Rome, where the troops of King Robert and of the Tuscan League had previously ar- rived, and were ready to oppose his coronation. On the 7th of May the imperial army reached Ponte Molle, which they found strongly guarded. They forced it and entered the city. Many engagements en- sued, which were so far successful on the part of the emperor, that on the ist of the following August he was crowned. He at once left Rome and pursued his way towards Florence. On the 19th of September he arrived before the city, which, according to Villani, he could have taken by a bold movement ; but, cautious, undecided, and still nourishing the vain hope that the Florentines would voluntarily submit, he lingered around the walls until the last opportunity was lost. A fever attacked his army, the emperor himself was taken ill, and, without striking a blow, he retired to Poggibonzi. Having thus failed to establish his authority in Tuscany, probably by * Inferno, xxxiii. A Charge Contradicted, gg the advice of Dante, he now decided to turn his arms against King Robert, who had so greatly contributed to his defeat. An alliance was concluded with Frederick, King of Sicily, money and troops were raised, and a fleet of one hundred and fifty galleys equipped. For- tune again seemed to smile on Henry, and the crown of Italy to be once more within his grasp. But only for a brief interval. He was taken ill on his way to Apuglia, in the town of Buonconvento, near Siena, where he died, August 24, 131 3. His army dispersed, Italy was left more disturbed than ever, and a new source of grief was opened in the sorrowful heart of Dante. But he was not ungrateful to the emperor, although he had accomplished so little. Imagining the events de- scribed in his poem not as past, but as to come, he causes Beatrice to point out in the heights of the Em- pyrean the proud throne, surmounted by a crown, on which shall rest the soul of the great Harry.* The course of Dante on the coming of Henry VII., has furnished narrow-minded critics occasion to charge him with having invoked foreign intervention in the affairs of the peninsula from motives of personal revenge. According to these writers, he abandoned the cause of the Guelphs only because he had been persecuted by that party, and urged the German emperor to take pos- session of Florence only that he might re-enter the city and chastise his enemies. But this charge is contradicted by the whole course of the poet himself. We have '*' Paradiso, xxx. lOO A Charge Contradicted, seen that his relations with political parties were always subordinate to higher objects, and that the idea of the unity of Italy, far from having sprung up in his mind after his exile, was the result of his calm and philosophic speculation in the Monarchia^ a. work which, according to the best critics of the present day, was written in the most brilliant period of his public career. That the Guelph party was unable to carry out that idea, he had early become convinced ; hence we have seen him, at a period preceding his proscription, attach himself to the Bianchi, who had many points of similarity with the Ghibelins. If he looked to the German emperors for the carrying out of his political system, we must not lose sight of the fact that those princes, in the middle ages, were recognized as the highest representatives of civil authority, and that Italy was not a self-existing nation, but under the yoke of foreign potentates. Dante had sought in vain for an Italian chief who could expel those despots, and reduce the country to one government. Nothing now remained but to look to France or to Ger- many for that power ; and between the two he did not hesitate to choose. While France had at all times la- bored to secure in Italy the ascendency of the popes, the natural foes of Italian unity, Germany, for more than two centuries, had opposed them. She was, there- fore, the natural ally of the Italian people in their strug- gle for national life. An alliance with France presented serious objections, formidable as she was in her position as a border state, in her strength and warlike character. I'ke Fleet of Italy, 101 and still more in the fact of her common origin. These dangers could not be feared in the case of Germany, a country heterogeneous, remote, divided, and harassed by intestine contentions. In any attempt at subjugation, the Italian people would be most likely to absorb the German ; as in the seventh century, when the northern tribes, descending into Italy for conquest, became civil- ized and fused into the national stock. Add to this, that the German emperors derived their supremacy from Rome, as the successors of the Caesars, and as such were Italians. Accordingly, Dante insisted on the ne- cessity of Rome becoming the seat of the empire as well as the capital of the nation, and that any emperor of foreign birth should become a naturalized Italian, as his power was of Italian origin. But it was no question with Dante as to who should be the redeemer of his country ; it was, where he should be found. He would have accepted Can Grande della Scala, Uguccione della Faggiuola, the Malaspinas, Fred- erick of Sicily, or even Robert of Anjou, notwithstanding he says of him that he was more fit to be a preacher than a king. Although Frederick, after the death of Henry, withdrew his galleys and declined to serve the cause any longer, the poet did not despair. He still clung to his cherished idea, and, in the spirit of proph- ecy, foretold that since the South had failed in her duty, the power of the nation must pass to the North. Comparing Italy to a fleet, he thus predicted the events of to-dav : — 102 Uguccione delta Faggiuola. Yet before the date When through the hundredth in his reckoning dropped. Pale January must be shoved aside From winter's calendar, these heavenly spheres Shall roar so loud, that Fortune shall be fain To turn the poop where she has now the prow, So that the fleet run onward : and true fruit, Expected long, shall crown at last the bloom.* After the death of Henry VII., Dante continued to roam through the country, and at the close of the year 1313 we find him in Pisa, at the court of the lord of that republic, Uguccione della Faggiuola. The most successful adventurer of his time, valiant and refined, a warrior and a poet, Uguccione had extended his domin- ions from Arezzo to Pisa and Lucca, and distinguished himself in the imperial army. Dante first met him at Arezzo, on his return from Rome, and was most favor- ably impressed by his manners, culture, and political aspirations. He now yielded to his entreaties and vis- ited his court, hoping to find leisure to continue his poem, and also to be able to induce Uguccione to put himself at the head of the national movement. He found him, however, unwilling to risk his present posi- tion for an uncertain glory in the future. He had mar- ried his daughter to Corso Donati, and had allowed his ambition to be tempted by the pope, who had promised a cardinal's hat to one of his sons ; and he dreaded to * Paradise, xxvii. At the Court of Can Grande, 103 endanger his relations with the court of Rome and the leader of the Guelph party. Becoming selfish, he be- came also despotic and cruel. A revolution ensued, led by Castruccio Castracane, a young patriot of Lucca, who had acquired great popularity for his boldness and gallantry. Uguccione was expelled from his dominions, and took refuge at the court of Verona, where he be- came general of the army ; and there he was again joined by the poet. Verona was then under the rule of Can Grande della Scala, the brother of Bartolommeo, at whose court Dante had before resided. The poet had known Cane in his youth, and entertained for him a warm friendship. A chivalric and adventurous prince, an intrepid warrior, a skilful statesman. Can Grande had extended his do- minions through northern Italy, and held the position of vicar-general of the empire. By his love of letters, and his fondness for poetry and the fine arts, he had attracted to Verona the most distinguished exiles, upon whom he lavished all his magnificent liberality. His splendid palace, adorned with pictures of battles, myth- ologic and pastoral scenes, its various departments deco- rated to suit the tastes and professions of his different guests, was at all times crowded with warriors,, poets, and artists, who rendered his court brilliant and re- nowned. Had Dante sought only comfort and repose, it would seem that he might have been happy here. His fame as a poet gained him universal admiration ; he was surrounded by some of his best friends, and en- 104 The Pains of Exile. joyed the affectionate care of his son Pietro, who had settled in that city as a lawyer, and whose descendants still live in the noble family of the Sarego-Allighieri.* But, with all the esteem and friendship which were- shown to him, he could not rest. The misfortunes of his country preyed on his sensitive spirit, and his soul was devoured by that slow-consuming fire which the exile only feels. Cacciaguida foreshadows the fate which awaited him when he savs : — Thou shalt leave each thing Beloved most dearly ; this is the first shaft Shot from the bow of exile. Thou shalt prove How salt the savor is of other's bread; How hard the passage to descend and climb By other's stairs. f In his Vulgare Eloquio he says : — " I have pity for all unhappy ones ; but most for those, whosoever they are, that languish in exile, and visit their country only in dreams." He early addressed a pathetic letter to the people of Florence, beginning, " My people, what have I done to thee ?" and entreating permission to return ; and in his Convito^ striving again to move his country- * The male line of Dante ceased in the youngest of his six sons. The noble family of the Saregos of Verona descend from Ginevra, only child of Pietro, who married Count Marco Antonio Sarego, whose family added the name of AUighieri to their own. At the request of the Corporation of Florence, the King of Italy has recently bestowed the honor of the Florentine patriciate upon the present Count Pietro Sarego- Allighieri and his descendants in the male line. f Paradiso, xvii. Ht's Refusal of an Amnesty. 105 men to pity, he writes : — " Oh, why was not the Sove- reign of the universe pleased to remove this sting from me ! for then none would have sinned against me. I should have suffered no undeserved pain, nor would I have been thus subjected to exile and to misery. It has been the pleasure of Florence, the beautiful city, the famous daughter of Rome, to reject me from her sweet bosom, where I was born, where I grew to mid- dle life, and where, if it may please her, I wish, from my heart, to end the time which yet remains to me, and then to rest there my worn-out spirit. Through almost all parts where our language is spoken, a wan- derer, well-nigh a beggar, I have gone, showing, against my will, the wounds of fortune. Truly I have been a vessel without sail or rudder, driven to diverse ports and shores by that hot blast, the breath of grievous poverty." But, much as he longed to return to Florence, he scorned all offers of pardon on terms derogatory to his dignity. In 131 7, the Neri finding themselves secure in power, and no longer under the evil influence of Corso Donati, who had been murdered by the populace, the Florentine authorities proclaimed an ordinance of amnesty to exiles on condition of fine and penance ; thus placing them on the level with pardoned convicts, who were, on the festival day of St. John, the patron of the city, required to present themselves at the church, holding a candle in their hands, when, with appropriate rites and offerings, they were restored to the rights of lo6 His Refusal of an Amnesty, citizenship. Several of the friends of Dante were, de- sirous that he should avail himself of this opportunity, and wrote to him urging his return. In a reply to such a request made by a monk, one of his friends, he says : — " I have received your letter with all the rever- ence and affection which I feel for you, and I am very grateful for the interest which you take in my return. My obligation to you is the more deeply felt, as it is so seldom that the exile finds friends. But as for the in- formation which you give to me, I pray you to consider my position before you judge of my decision. So I understand, through your letters and those of my nephew and of other friends, that I may avail myself of the ordi- nance just proclaimed for the restoration of the exiles ; that is, if I pay a certain sum, and submit myself to the ceremony of being offered, I may be absolved and re- turn. This proposal contains two things ridiculous and ill-advised. I say ill-advised by those who mentioned them ; for you, wiser and more discreet, say nothing on this subject. Is this then the glorious return of Dante Allighieri to his country, after nearly three lustres of suffering and exile ? Did my innocence, patent to all, merit this ? For this, the perpetual sweat and toil of study ? Far from one, the housemate of philosophy, be so rash and earthen-hearted a humility as to allow himself to be offered up bound like a school-boy or a criminal ! Far from one, the preacher of justice, to pay those who have done him wrong, as for a favor. This is not the way for me to return to my country ; Hu Dissatisfaction. 107 but if another can be found that shall not derogate from the fame and honor of Dante, that I will enter on with no lagging steps ; for if by none such may Florence be re-entered, by me then never ! Can I not everywhere behold the mirror of the sun and the stars ? speculate on sweetest truths under any sky, without giving my- self up ingloriously, nay, ignominiously, to the populace and city of Florence ? Nor shall I want for bread." Having refused the amnesty, Dante continued to live at the court of Can Grande, chiefly occupied in the composition of the Paradiso, the first cantos of which he dedicated to his patron and friend. In his letter of dedication he alludes to the fame which his lordship everywhere enjoyed, and by which he himself had been attracted to his court. He says that his magnificence surpasses even its reputation, and, in token of his friend- ship, he begs him to accept the most sublime portion of his poem. He then dwells on the various interpretations of the work, its symbols and allegories ; he explains the reason for the title of Chmmedia ; speaks of its divisions ; and, while he enters into an exposition of the first canto, he says that he must omit other details which would aid in the interpretation of the poem, as he is so oppressed by poverty. He hopes, however, that the generosity of his patron will find the means to place him out of need, that he may be allowed to write more on the sub- ject. This lament, which is often repeated in other works, seems to indicate that although Dante was kindly treated lo8 Hu lyis satisfaction, by Can Grande, his generosity was not of that exalted kind which he had experienced from his brother, Bar- tolommeo. Hence, while in the Paradiso he extols Cane for his liberality, and predicts his future glory, he plainly hints that he may say things not relished by his patron, and that, in consequence, he may even lose his place of refuge. It could not be supposed that the poet would long remain a favorite in a court in which, how- ever hospitable, gayety and pleasure formed the chief occupation of life, and the power to minister to these tastes the surest means to favor and advancerhent. His frankness and his haughty bearing were little calculated to secure the partiality or good-will of the company among whom he found himself. Can Grande, although esteeming him far above all his other guests, often al- lowed himself to be amused at the embarrassment in which the insolence or the ridicule of the triflers of the court sometimes placed him. This, of course, added to his irritation and dissatisfaction. Petrarch relates, that Dante having a positive dislike for one of the courtiers who was the favorite of all for his buffoonery. Cane, one day, expressed some surprise that such a fool could make himself agreeable, while he who was so wise could not; to which the poet replied : — " You would not wonder, if you knew that friendship lies in similarity of tastes and of mind." It appears that coarse jests were al- lowed at the court of Can Grande, for which Dante had no taste, and which it was far below the dignity of the host to permit. It is related that, on one occasion, a At the Court of the Polentas. 109 boy was concealed under the table, who gathered the bones, which, according to the custom of the time, were thrown on the floor, and placed them all together at the feet of the poet. On rising from dinner the pile was discovered ; the company seemed much amused, and Can Grande remarked that Dante must be a great eater of meat. To which he quickly retorted, alluding to his name of Cane : — " Sir, you would not see so many bones even if I were a dog (un cane).'* From these and similar incidents handed down by tradition, it may be inferred that his hfe at that court was not a happy or congenial one. This unhappiness was still more aggravated by the office of judge, with which some of his early biographers say that he was intrusted, and which, it appears, was highly distasteful to him. Be- sides, while Cane recognized Frederick of Austria as the legitimate emperor, Dante, with Uguccione, sup- ported Louis of Bavaria, to whom he dedicated his book, De Monarch'ia. Thus it is easy to understand how, even without any open rupture with his patron, he finally decided to abandon Verona. In 1320, Dante passed to Ravenna, then ruled by the Polentas, whom he had long numbered among his friends. He had fought with Bernardino at the battle of Campaldino, and enjoyed the friendship of Guide Novello, the present ruler of the republic, a poet and a warrior, who felt himself honored by this visit, and received the poet with a hospitality worthy of the host II no He is Sent Ambassador to Venice. and of the guest. He called to his court his sons Pietro and Jacopo, whom he intrusted with honorable offices ; he surrounded him with every comfort, and strove in many ways to make him forget his sorrows. Thus enjoying the generous friendship of Guido, the love of his sons, and the tender care of several friends, — among whom were the sister of Uguccione della Faggiuola, her two daughters, and Giott;p, who came to Ravenna to visit him, — he devoted himself to the completion of his work. He continued to correspond with the schol- ars of his time, among them Giovanni del Virgilio, the most distinguished Latin poet of the age. Two eclogues of this writer remain, addressed to Dante, whom he calls the harmonious swan, while he reserves for himself the name of vulgar crow. In these verses Virgilio exhorts him to abandon the Italian language, and to sing in Latin the great events .of the day, such as the death of Henry VII., the victories of Can Grande, and the wars of Liguria. " But, above all," he savs, " come to Bologna, to take the poetical crown which belongs to thee, although I fear that thy Guido will not allow thee to leave Ravenna, and the beautiful Pineta which adorns it on the coast of the Adriatic." Dante replied to these poems in two other Latin eclogues, in which he says that however happy he would be to receive the laurel crown in Bologna, he would be still happier to receive it in Florence. " But," he con- cludes, "when new kingdoms shall be manifested through my cantos, and the inhabitants of the stars H2S Death. Ill shall appear, then will be time to garland my gray hair with ivy and laurel." In 1 32 1, Dante was sent by Guido Novello on a diplomatic mission to the Republic of Venice, for the purpose, it appears, of forming an alliance to resist the growing power of the Guelphs, whom Guido, although himself of that party, had reason to fear. The Vene- tians, however, a few years before having been excom- municated by the pope, and their property and territory given to the first who should conquer them, had only succeeded in averting these penalties by making the most abject submission through their ambassador, who, it is said, was admitted into the pontifical presence only in the attitude of a dog walking on all fours, with a noose around his neck. The proud republic of Venice, there- fore, far from consenting to enter into a new contest with the papal power, refused even to receive the am- bassador of Guido, and Dante, disheartened, returned to Ravenna. Broken down by a life of struggle and disappoint- ment, his hair white from suffering rather than from age, the divine old man, as Giovanni del Virgilio calls him, fell ill on his return from Venice, and after lin- gering a few days, having received the last consolations of religion, died on the 14th of September, I32i,atthe age of fifty-six years, mourned, says Boccaccio, by Guido and all the people of Ravenna. Robed as a Franciscan friar, according to his own wish, at his feet a golden lyre with broken chords, his 112 His ^omb at Rav 'erina. hands resting on the open Scriptures, the remains of Dante lay in state in the palace of the Polentas. A magnificent funeral followed ; the bier was borne by the most distinguished citizens of the city, and Guido himself delivered the funeral oration. He ordered a worthy monument to be erected in the honor of the departed poet, but whether he was able to carry out his project, or whether, being himself soon after driven from Ravenna, his pious wish remained unfulfilled, it is dif- ficult to decide. In 1483 a monument was erected bv Bernardo Bembo, Podesta of Ravenna, designed by Lombardi, a celebrated architect and sculptor. In 1692 it was restored by Cardinal Corsi, pontifical le- gate, and was again restored, in 1780, by Cardinal Gonzaga. A distinguished American writer thus describes the rnonument : — " At an angle of one of the by-streets of Ravenna is a small building, bv no means striking either as regards its architecture or decorations. It is fronted by a gate of open iron-work, surmounted by a cardinal's hat — indicating that the structure was raised or renovated by some church dignitary, a class who appear invariably scrupulous to memorialize by inscrip- tions and emblems whatever public work they see fit to promote: A stranger might pass this littbs edifice un- heeded, standing as it does at a lonely corner, and wear- ing an aspect of neglect \ but as the eye glances through the railing of the portal, it instinctively rests on a small and time-stained bass-relief in the opposite wall, repre- Ht's^Tomb at Ravenna, 113 senting that sad, stern, and emaciated countenance, which, in the form of busts, engravings, frescoes, and portraits, haunts the traveller in every part of Italy. It is a face so strongly marked with the sorrow of a noble and ideal mind, that there is no need of the lau- rel wreath upon the head to assure us that we look upon the lineaments of a poet. And who could fail to stay his feet, and still the current of his wandering thoughts to a deeper flow, when he» reads the entabla- ture of the little temple, Sepulchrum Dantis poetce,'"'^ Of the several Latin inscriptions on the monument, none have particular claim to be noticed except the last two verses of the principal one, attributed to Dante himself, but which is more probably from the pen of Giovanni del Virgilio or some of his pupils. f Florence has again and again entreated Ravenna to restore to her keeping the sacred remains of the poet. In the sixteenth century Mi- chael Angelo desired to erect a monument in his honor, if his ashes might be restored to Florence. But all nego- tiation failed : nor has the formal demand recently made by the corporation of Florence met with better success. Ravenna, proud of her sacred trust, declines to renounce it, on the ground that Dante, as the national poet, belongs * Henry T. Tuckerman. -'The Italian Sketch-Book." f The inscription here alluded to is thus translated by an American poet : — The rights of monarchy, the heavens, the stream of fire, the pit In vision seen, I sang as far as to the fates seemed fit : But since my soul, an alien here, hath flown to nobler wars. And, happier now, hath gone to seek its Maker 'mid the surs. Here am I Dante shut, exiled from the ancestral shore Whom Florence, the of all least loving mother, bore. 11:* 114 ^^^ Portrait by Gfotto. to no one city more than to another, and that his grave cannot be in a fitter place than that in which he found his last refuge. In 1829, a cenotaph in honor of the poet was erected by the Florentines in Santa Croce, where lie the remains of Michael Angelo, Machiavelli, Galileo, and Alfieri ; but regenerated Italy will doubt- less, ere long, give a nobler expression to the admiration and reverence with which she regards the great founder of her literature. " Dante," says Boccaccio, " was of middle height ; his face was long, his nose aquiHne, his eyes large, his complexion dark, his hair and beard thick, crisp, and black ; his countenance was sad and thoughtful, his gait grave, and his bearing" wonderfully composed and polished. He was greatly inclined to solitude, familiar with few, and temperate in his habits ; he seldom spoke save when spoken to, though a most eloquent person. He was assiduous in study, of tenacious memory, and marvellous capacity." According to a tradition pre- served by Filippo Villani and others, confirmed by Va- sari, a portrait of the poet in early life was painted by Giotto, with other frescoes, in the chapel of the palace of the Podesta, now used as a prison under the name of the Bargello. From two fires which occurred in the palace in the fourteenth century, the pictures became so defaced that the walls on which they were painted were whitewashed, and in the course of years the process was several times repeated. Although connoisseurs Hts Portrait by Giotto. \\^ had long believed that the frescoes were not entirely- destroyed, it was only in 1840, through the zeal of Sey- mour Kirkup, Richard H. Wilde, and Mr. Bezzi, that any investigation was made. The whitewash was re- moved, and the portrait of the poet, although consider- ably damaged, was brought to light and restored by Marini. It forms part of a group painted on the walls of the old chapel, where appear the figures of Corso Donati, of a cardinal, of a king, and by his side that of Dante. Two distinguished artists,* recently commis- sioned by the Italian government to inquire concerning the most authentic portrait of Dante, have reported this to be a copy from the original of Giotto, who, according to the chroniclers of the day, had painted the poet, not on the walls, but on a table attached to the altar of the chapel, and which may have been saved from the fires alluded to. Among existing portraits, the com- missioners give the preference to one in miniature which is found in the Codice Riccardiano (1040), and next, to the one on the walls of the Duomo,t which they believe to be from the original of Taddeo Gaddi, a pupil of Giotto, which was once in the church of Santa Croce. They also call attention to a mask in colored plaster owned by the Marquises Torrigiani of Florence, which is said to be a copy of the original mask taken after death, from which the busts now most frequently seen have probably been copied. * * Signori Lulgi Passerini and Gaetano Milanesi. f Engraved by Raphael Morghen. Ii6 His Portrait by Giotto. The conclusions of these connoisseurs are opposed by other artists of equal reputation, who defend the authenticity of the portrait in the palace of the Podesta, and give it a decided preference over all others."^ How- ever this may be, it is certain that from the existing portraits in the Codici and the churches, as well as from those in the pictures of the Holy Sacrament and the Parnassus bv Raphael, there is formed an ideal, which, varying in minor details, gives us the general type of the features of the poet, and of the changes which they underwent, through age and struggle, from the youthful picture of Giotto, marked bv a touching sadness, femi- nine softness, and depth of expression, to those of a later period, when the bitter trials of his life had stamped themselves on his countenance, and given to it that ex- pression which made the women of Verona say, as he passed, that he had come from the hell whence he could go and return at his pleasure, and bring news of those who were there. * Among those who uphold the authenticity of the portrait of Giotto, Signori Cavalcaselle and Selvatico may be mentioned. THE DIVINA COMMEDIA THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. IN his dedication to Can Grande della Scala, Dante thus explains why he gave the title of Commedia to the poem to which posterity has added the epithet divine. " Comedy," he writes, " is a poetic narration, beginning with painful scenes and having a happy con- clusion. It differs from tragedy, which is quiet and admirable in the beginning, and in the end horrible. Besides, the style of tragedy differs from that of com- edy ; the one is lofty and sublime, the other common and humble, according to the precept of Horace. The reason thus appears why this work is called Commedia. If we regard its subject, while at the beginning it is horrible and revolting, it is hell ; at the conclusion it is happy, desirable, and attractive, it is paradise. And so the style is low and humble, because it is written in the language in which even little women converse." The Divina Commedia^ like other great national epics, is founded on the religious traditions of the age in which it was composed. Long before the time of Dante, the gods of Olympus had been dethroned, and a new religion had revealed to mankind a higher spiritual life on earth, and a heaven of justice, peace, and blessedness here- 120 Its Mythology. after. Founded on Monotheism, excluding alike Poly- theism and Pantheism, embodying in its doctrines the loftiest principles of morality and right, and presenting, in the life of its divine founder, the most elevated type of virtue and self-sacrifice, Christianity appeared as an ideal religion, independent of all mythologies, — a living negation of the priesthood and of all ecclesiastical forms, relying exclusively on spirit and truth to produce the moral regeneration of mankind. Owing, however, in part to the nature of the human mind, in part to the influence of the Greek and Roman mythological tra- ditions, as well as those from the East and the North among which it developed, Christianity soon lost much of its spiritual character ; and the new religion not only grew into a vast hierarchical organization modelled on that of the empire, but it borrowed rites and ceremonies from the pagan worship, as well as new doctrines from the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Arabian philosophies. From these various elements there arose a mythology, half Christian half pagan, of which allegories, symbols, legends, and the personification of the virtues and vices formed the principal features, arid which found expres- sion in the romances of chivalry, in the songs of the Troubadours, in the fabliaux of the langue d'Oc, and in all the Hterature of the middle ages. Prominent among the elements of this mythology were the fictions which related to thejfuture life. The Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in- volving the punishment of the wicked and the reward Its Mythology. 121 of the just, passing through the popular imagination, assumed a materiaLshape, and grew into an external form, through which it was believed that the palingenesy of man after death was to be effected. This belief had long before prevailed among the Egyptians and the Asiatic nations, whose traditions concerning the regions inhabited by departed souls, and their correspondence with the deeds done in the flesh, passing through the Greeks and the Romans, reappeared in the middle ages among the Mohammedans and Jews ; and particu- larly among Christians, whose faith became intensified by the prevailing opinion that the reign of Antichrist was approaching, and that the end of the world was near at hand. Hence the visions, raptures, apparitions, and imaginary journevs through the infernal regions, purgatory, and paradise, which fill the ascetic and the theological works of that day, and of which the " Golden Legends," published in the thirteenth cen- tury, and the " Lives of the Saints," by the Bolland- ists, are inexhaustible mines. At the time of Dante, these imaginary creations had taken deep root in the