Dante: His Times and His Work Part 2

Of Dante's boyhood and early youth we have only stray indications, and those mainly gathered from his own writings. We can, indeed, form a pretty clear notion of what he _was_, but we know little enough about what he _did_. From a very early period he was made a hero of romance.

Without going so far as some recent writers, both German and Italian, who seem to look upon every statement of early biographers with suspicion, while regarding their silence as good evidence that what they do not mention cannot have happened, we must admit that we cannot with certainty date any event in the first thirty years of Dante's life.

Still, we can infer a good deal. He must unquestionably, during this time, have read a great deal, for it would have been impossible for a man wandering about from place to place, and intermittently busied in political affairs, to have ama.s.sed in seven or eight years the amount of learning which the _Commedia_ by itself shows him to have possessed. He must have been recognised at an early age as a young man of marked ability. His intimacy with the old statesman Brunetto Latini, who died in 1294, and his friendship with Charles of Anjou's grandson, Carlo Martello,[23] the young King of Hungary, who was at Florence in the same year and the following, are sufficient to prove this. Neither Brunetto, the most learned man of his age in Florence, and, as we should say, a man of "society" as well, nor a prince who, had he lived, would have been one of the most important personages in Europe, was likely to have distinguished with his friendship a young man of twenty-nine, not of the highest birth, unless he had already made himself notable for intellectual eminence.

One event occurred during Dante's youth, in which he is so generally believed to have borne a part, that it will probably come as a shock to many people to learn that this belief rests only on the statement of a writer who was not born till nearly fifty years after Dante's death. On St. Barnabas's day, June 11, 1289, the Florentine Guelfs met the Ghibelines of Arezzo, in whose ranks many of their own exiles were fighting, in a plain called Campaldino, belonging to the district of Certomondo, which lies in the Casentino, or upper part of the Arno valley. The Florentines gained a complete victory, though only after a hard fight, in which many of the chief Ghibeline leaders lost their lives. The event was one of great importance, and Villani recounts it in very full detail.[24] Dante also refers to it in one of the best-known pa.s.sages of the _Purgatory_ (v. 92). It is quite possible that he himself may have taken part in the battle; but if he did so, it is somewhat strange that none of the earlier commentators, including his own son, nor any biographer of the fourteenth century, should have known of it, or, knowing of it, should have thought it worth recording; and that it should have been left to Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, writing after the year 1400, to make the first reference to so noteworthy an incident in Dante's early career. Leonardo (whose "Life" will be found in Bianchi's edition of the _Commedia_) quotes, indeed, a letter, said to have been written many years afterwards by Dante, in which reference is made to his presence in the battle; but this letter has long disappeared, and it is to be noted that the biographer does not even profess to have seen it himself. There is, it must be said, in the _h.e.l.l_ (xxii. _init._) one allusion to warlike operations in the Aretine territory of which Dante claims to have been an eye-witness; but as none of the early commentators seems to refer to Campaldino in connection with this pa.s.sage, it tells, if anything, against the received story.

Another event, sometimes a.s.signed to the period of Dante's life before his banishment, has somewhat more evidence in its favour. That he visited Paris at least once in the course of his life, the early authorities are agreed; but Villani, Boccaccio, and Benvenuto of Imola, all writing in the fourteenth century, make the visit to have taken place during his exile. It is not until we come to John of Serravalle, Lord of Fermo, who as Bishop of Rimini attended the Council of Constance, and there, at the request of the Bishops of Bath and Wells and Salisbury, prepared a Latin version of the _Commedia_ with commentary, that we find mention of an earlier visit. His testimony is a little suspicious, because in the same sentence he also a.s.serts that Dante studied at Oxford, a statement which, without strong confirmation, it would be very hard to accept. On the other side, it may be said that the silence of the older biographers is not conclusive evidence against the early study at Paris. Dante also went to Bologna, as it would appear, both before and after his banishment; yet while Villani and Boccaccio only name the latter visit, Benvenuto speaks only of the former. It is therefore quite possible that all three may have ignored the first period of study at Paris, or, if there was but one such period, may have a.s.signed it to the wrong part of Dante's life. _Prima facie_ it is more probable that he would have undertaken both the long journey and the course of study in his days of "greater freedom and less responsibility," than when he was not only engaged upon the composition both of his great poem and of several prose treatises, but was taking an active share in political work.

Again, the allusion in the _Paradise_ to the lectures of Sigier bears all the stamp of a personal reminiscence; just as the allusion to the d.y.k.es along the coast of Flanders to ill.u.s.trate those which form the banks of the river Phlegethon, could hardly have occurred to one who had not seen them with his own eyes, though the biographers mention no journey to Flanders. But Sigier's lectures and his life too were over by 1300.

Another little bit of evidence may be given for what it is worth. Any one who has read the discourses of Meister Eckhart, the founder of the school of German mystics, will be struck by the frequent and close resemblances, not of thought only, but of expression and ill.u.s.tration, which exist between him and Dante. So frequent and so close are these, that the reader can hardly conceive the possibility of their being due to mere coincidence.[25] But Eckhart preached and wrote (if he wrote) in German, a language which we have no reason to think that Dante knew; so that the exchange of ideas between them, if any, must have taken place by word of mouth, and in French or Latin. Now, Eckhart was for a long time in Paris--so long that he seems to have been known as "Master Eckhart of Paris"--and left that city in 1302. If he and Dante ever met, it must have been in Paris (for though Eckhart went to Italy in 1302, it appears to have been only on a journey to Rome, the last place save Florence where Dante would then have cared to show himself), and that at some time before 1300.

Lastly, we may question if Dante would have chosen Paris as a place of residence while Philip the Fair was on the throne of France.

If, then, he did visit France before his exile, we can date the visit with some certainty. It can hardly have been before 1290, the year of Beatrice's death, nor after 1294, the year in which Carlo Martello came to Florence. Dante's marriage, again, in all probability took place somewhere about the latter year. We know nothing directly of Dante's doings in this interval; nothing, at any rate, inconsistent with his having been for some considerable period away from Florence.

But we have kept till the last the subject which to many is the only one a.s.sociated with Dante's younger life. What, it will be said, about Beatrice? The fashionable theory nowadays seems to be that there undoubtedly was a lady at Florence of that name, the daughter of Folco Portinari, that she was married to Simone de' Bardi, a member of that great family who were Edward III.'s bankers, and that she died in the flower of her youth. But, say the modern Italian and German writers, this lady--Frau Bardi-Portinari, the latter call her--had no more to do with Dante than any other Beatrice in history. This will seem to many who do not realise on how slight a basis the identification of her rests, to be the very wantonness of paradox. These may be startled to learn that the whole story depends upon the veracity of one man, and that a professed writer of romantic fiction. It is from Boccaccio, and from him alone, that we have learnt to see in Dante's mystical guide and guardian, in the lost love of his early years, only the idealised and allegorised figure of Folco Portinari's daughter. What, then, is his evidence worth? To this we can only reply, that Boccaccio was born eight years before Dante's death; that he lived in Florence from his childhood; that he must have spoken with scores of people to whom the social and literary history of the years preceding 1290 was perfectly familiar; that both Dante and the husband of Beatrice were prominent men; and that Boccaccio can have had no motive for making a statement which, if untrue, he must have known to be so. Further, if the statement had been untrue, it would surely have been contradicted, and some trace of the contradiction would have been found. But, on the contrary, it seems to have been accepted from the first. It is repeated by Boccaccio's younger contemporary and disciple Benvenuto of Imola, who himself lived for some time in Florence, before all those who would be able from their own recollection to confirm or deny it would have pa.s.sed away. And Benvenuto, it may be noted, though devoted to Boccaccio, was no mere student, but a shrewd and critical man of the world. Dante's son Pietro, indeed, says no word to show that Beatrice was anything but a symbol, and in this some of the other early commentators follow him. But this would prove too much. Whether she be rightly identified with Beatrice Portinari or not, it is impossible for any reader possessing the least knowledge of the human heart to see in the Beatrice of the _Commedia_ a symbol merely. Not to mention that it would be quite contrary to Dante's practice thus to _invent_ a personage for the sake of the symbol, it is absurd to suppose that the "ten years' thirst"

which the sight of her relieves, "the eyes whence Love once took his weapons," and such-like expressions were intended primarily as references to a neglected study of theology or a previous devotion to a contemplative life. The omission, therefore, of the commentators who interested themselves mainly in the allegory to tell us about the real Beatrice cannot be used as evidence against her existence.

The first supporter of what may be called the "superior" view--namely that the whole story of Beatrice is purely allegorical--was one Giovanni Mario Filelfo, a writer of the fifteenth century, born more than a hundred years after Dante's death. As a rule, where his statements can be tested, they are incorrect; and on the whole his work appears to be a ma.s.s of unwarranted inferences from unverified a.s.sertions. It was not till recent times that his theory on the subject found any defenders.

We may, then, pretty safely continue in the old faith. After all, it explains more difficulties than it raises. No doubt if we cannot free ourselves from modern conceptions we shall be somewhat startled not only by the almost deification of Beatrice, but also by the frank revelation of Dante's pa.s.sion, with which neither the fact of her having become another man's wife nor his own marriage seems in any way to interfere.

It needs, however, but a very slight knowledge of the conditions of life in the thirteenth century to understand the position. As has been already pointed out, the notion of woman's love as a spur to n.o.ble living, "the maiden pa.s.sion for a maid," was quite recent, and at its first growth was quite distinct from the love which finds its fulfilment in marriage. Almost every young man of a literary or intellectual turn seems to have had his Egeria; and when we can identify her she is usually the wife of some one else.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] It may be noted that the name is undoubtedly Teutonic. The suggested derivations from _aliger_, "the wing-bearer," and the like, are purely fanciful. The first part of the word is doubtless _alt_, "old," which we have in our own Aldhelm; the termination is the _geirr_, or _gar_, which occurs in all Teutonic languages, and means "spear." Dante (= Durante) was a common Christian name.

[23] Doubts have even been thrown on Dante's friendship with this young King. To these we can only reply that, if it is not implied by _Par._, viii. 55, it is impossible to draw any inference whatever as to Dante's life from any line of the poem.

[24] The conclusion of his account is picturesque enough to deserve reproduction. "The news of the said victory came to Florence the very day and hour when it took place; for the Lords Priors having after dinner gone to sleep and rest, by reason of the anxiety and watching of the past night, suddenly came a knock at the door of the chamber, with a cry, 'Rise up, for the Aretines are discomfited;' and when they were risen, and the door opened, they found no man, and their servants without had heard nothing. Whence it was held a great and notable marvel, seeing that before any person came from the host with the news, it was towards the hour of vespers."

[25] We find close resemblances between Dante and the founder of German mysticism. Not only in similes and ill.u.s.trations, such as the tailor and his cloth, the needle and the loadstone, the flow of water to the sea, the gravitation of weights to the centre; or in such phrases as Eckhart's "nature possesses nothing swifter than the heaven," or his use of _edilkeit_ "n.o.bility,"

in reference to freewill, _la n.o.bile virtu_. These may have been, in some cases were, borrowed by both from a common source, though the fact of their so often borrowing the same things is suggestive. So, too, both Dante and Eckhart quote St. John i. 3, 4, with the punctuation adopted by Aquinas, _quod factum est, in ipso vita erat_--"what was made, in Him was life"--though the Vulgate and St. Augustine prefer the arrangement of the words familiar to us in our own version. But when we find such an unusual thought as that in _Par._, viii. 103, 104, of the redeemed soul having no more need to repent of its sins, expressed in almost similar words by Eckhart, it is hardly possible to believe that it occurred to both independently.

There are many other instances, but it would occupy too much s.p.a.ce if I were to give them here.

CHAPTER IV.

FLORENTINE AFFAIRS TILL DANTE'S EXILE

In order to understand the extent to which Dante's life was influenced by the political circ.u.mstances of his age, it will be well to carry our survey of events somewhat further, with special reference to the affairs of Florence.

As we have seen, after frequent alternations of fortune, the city pa.s.sed, within two years of Dante's birth, for good and all to the Guelf side. On St. Martin's Day, in November, 1266, Count Guido Novello and his German horse were driven out of the city by the burghers; and though in the January following a treaty of peace was made, and cemented by various marriages between members of the leading families on either side--an arrangement of which the chief result was to embitter party spirit among the Guelfs who had taken no share in it--anything like a lasting reconciliation was soon found to be out of the question. Charles of Anjou, moreover, fresh from his victory over Manfred, was by no means disposed to allow the beaten Ghibelines any chance of rallying.

Negotiations were entered into between him and the Florentine Guelfs, and on Easter Day, 1267, Guy of Montfort (son of Sir Simon) entered the city at the head of eight hundred French cavalry. The Ghibelines did not venture to strike a blow, but departed on the day before his arrival. At Easter, says Villani, the crime was committed which first split the city into factions; and at Easter the descendants of the men who had committed the crime went into exile, never to return.

The same year saw a general rally of the north Italian states to the Guelf side, and before many months were out even Lombardy, where, says Villani, there was hardly any memory of the Guelfs, followed the stream.

In Tuscany, Pisa and Siena alone held by the tradition--for it was little more--of allegiance to the Empire. The Florentine exiles betook themselves to those cities, and before long the spirits of the party had revived sufficiently to allow them to play what must have been felt to be their last stroke in the game. Profiting by the disaffection of certain Apulian and Sicilian barons (whom one may imagine to have found the gloomy discipline of Charles a poor exchange for the brilliancy and licence of Frederick's Court), they cast their eyes towards the last surviving representative of that Count Frederick who, some two hundred years before, had fixed his seat in the hill-fortress of Staufen.

Conrad, or Corradino, as the Italians called him, grandson of Frederick II., was a lad of sixteen, still under the tutelage of his mother, the widow of Conrad IV. Germany seems to have been loyal to him, and had it not been for the impatience of the Italian Ghibelines, he might well have looked forward to regaining, perhaps under more favourable auspices, the Empire which his predecessors had held. But the Tuscan n.o.bles, smarting under defeat, could not wait; and in spite of his mother's opposition, they carried the boy off. Money was lacking; and of the ten thousand German hors.e.m.e.n who accompanied him across the Brenner, only three thousand five hundred went beyond Verona. He pa.s.sed through Lombardy, however, without opposition, and with the aid of the Genoese fleet reached Pisa in May, 1268. The rising of the Apulian barons had compelled Charles to return hastily to his kingdom, and Conradin found his way clear to Siena. An action in the district of Arezzo resulted in the defeat and capture of Charles's "marshal," who had come out from Florence in pursuit, and the German force was able to enter Rome unmolested. There they received a reinforcement of eight hundred good Spanish cavalry under Don Henry, brother of the King of Castile, and, elated with success, pushed on to strike a decisive blow. They marched eastward to Tagliacozzo, just within the frontier of the Abruzzi, while Charles reached the same point by forced marches from Nocera. The armies met on St. Bartholomew's Eve, and at first everything seemed to go well for Conradin. The Spanish division defeated the Provencals, and the Germans crushed the French and Italians. But Charles had with him an experienced old knight, Alard de St. Valery, by whose advice he held a picked force in reserve, concealed behind some rising ground. With this he now attacked the victorious Germans and Spaniards, who had got out of hand in the excitement of pursuit and plundering. They made a bold resistance, but discipline told in the end; they were utterly defeated and their leaders put to flight. Conradin and his immediate staff, comprising the Duke of Austria and some German and Italian n.o.bles, made their way to Astura on the coast of the Campagna, and had succeeded in embarking when they were recognised by one of the Frangipani, who were the lords of the territory. Arrested by him and handed over to Charles, they were subjected to a form of trial, and beheaded in the market-place of Naples. This act has always been regarded as an indelible blot on Charles's record. Dante couples it with the alleged murder, by his order, of St. Thomas Aquinas; and it seems to have been felt even by members of the Guelf party as something, if one may so say, beyond the rules of the game. Pope Clement, according to Villani, blamed Charles severely; and the pious historian, for his own part, sees in the King's subsequent misfortunes the judgment of G.o.d upon his cruelty towards an innocent boy. The judge who p.r.o.nounced the sentence was slain before Charles's very eyes by his son-in-law, Robert, son to the Count of Flanders, "and not a word was said, for Robert was great with the King, and it appeared to the King and to all the barons that he had acted like a valiant gentleman." In Conradin the Hohenstaufen line came to an end, and therewith all _raison d'etre_ for the Ghibeline party. After this it became merely a turbulent faction, until the accession of Henry of Luxemburg; when Caesar once more began to take interest in his Italian dominions.

It may be conceded that party rancour had much more to do with the bringing of Conradin into Italy than any conscientious adhesion to views such as those to which Dante afterwards gave utterance in the _De Monarchia_, or faith in the benefit which would accrue to the world from the rule of a single sovereign. But it shows the hold which the Empire still had on men's minds, that the Ghibeline chiefs should have preferred to take a boy from Germany as the figure-head of their cause, rather than seek a leader of more experience from among their fellow-countrymen. Nor does it seem to have entered any one's mind to look out of Germany for an Emperor. There were, indeed, at the very time, two rival Caesars-elect in existence--Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and Alfonso, King of Castile, the former of whom his own countrymen, more in derision than respect, were wont to call "King of Almayne;" but clearly no Ghibeline cared to call upon either of them to "heal the wounds which were killing Italy." Later, when the long interregnum was brought to an end by the election of Rudolf of Hapsburg, even the Guelf Villani holds that if he had been willing to pa.s.s into Italy he would have been lord of it without opposition; but that astute prince no doubt found himself much better employed in converting a petty baronial line into one of the great houses of Germany, and ultimately of Europe, than in acting up to a t.i.tular dignity which brought its bearer more splendour than either wealth or ease. When he did send an Imperial Vicar into Tuscany in 1281 his chance was gone, and the emissary was glad to come to terms with the Florentines.

Thus, from the earliest time that Dante could remember, the Guelfs held an almost undisturbed supremacy throughout Tuscany. There was occasional fighting between Florence, as the head of the Guelf League, and Siena, or Pisa, as the case might be. The Sienese, though helped by Guido Novello and the Florentine exiles, and by some of the Spanish and German troops who had escaped from Tagliacozzo, were badly beaten at Colle di Val d'Elsa in 1269, and their commander, Provenzano Salvani (whom Dante afterwards met in Purgatory), taken and slain. In the following year this city too was purged of the Ghibeline taint, and a few Florentine citizens who were caught were, after a reference to Charles, duly beheaded. Pisa held out somewhat longer, and was able to expel its Guelfs in 1275, among them the famous Count Ugolino de' Gherardeschi, a member of the house of Donoratico, one of whose counts had been captured and killed with Conradin; but in a year's time a Florentine success brought them back. An effort made by Pope Gregory X. to reconcile the factions, as he pa.s.sed through Florence on his way to the Council of Lyons, bore little or no fruit, and, as a pendant to former excommunications of Emperors, the city was placed under interdict. When, a year and a half later, Gregory died at Arezzo, "by his death," says Villani, "the Guelfs of Florence were greatly cheered, by reason of the ill will which he had towards them;"--an interesting remark, as showing that the Guelfs were not prepared to support the Holy See farther than their own interests as a party demanded.

The condition of Florence at this time cannot be better described than in Villani's words. Writing of the year 1278, he says--

"In these times, the Guelf n.o.bles of Florence, reposing from their foreign wars with victory and honour, and fattened upon the goods of the exiled Ghibelines, and by reason of their other gains, began, through pride and envy, to quarrel among themselves; whence came to pa.s.s in Florence more feuds and enmities between the citizens, with slayings and woundings.

Among them all the greatest was the quarrel between the house of the Adimari of the one part, who were very great and powerful, and on the other side were the house of the Donati; in such wise that nearly the whole of the city took sides, and some held with one party and some with the other, whereby the city and the Guelf party were in great danger."

We shall remember how, in Dante's judgement also, pride, envy, and avarice were "the sparks that had set hearts on fire," in Florence.

Once again the Pope, who was now Nicholas III., interfered; and once again representatives of the two great factions exchanged the kiss of peace before a Papal Legate, this time in front of "the Preaching Friars' new church of New St. Mary's, in Florence," of which the Legate, Cardinal Latino, had but lately laid the first stone. The Ghibeline leaders were still kept out, but the rank and file returned. The feud of the Adimari and Donati was patched up for the time, whereby "the said Cardinal had much honour, and Florence remained a good time in a peaceful and good and tranquil state."

Cardinal Latino had arranged for the government of Florence by a committee of fourteen "good men," of whom eight were to be Guelfs and six Ghibelines. They were to hold office for two months. It marks the Cardinal as a man of some organizing capacity that his peace continued for four years, during which time Villani has next to nothing to relate about the affairs of his city. These were the years in which Dante was growing up to manhood. As a boy of thirteen he would doubtless have looked on at the scene in front of Santa Maria Novella; and during the next four peaceful years we may suppose that he would have begun to sit at the feet of the old statesman, diplomatist, and scholar Brunetto Latini, picking up from his lips the lore "how man becomes immortal."

We can picture him too, where the boys and girls were gathered together, a silent and reserved lad, probably unpopular unless with one or two special friends, paying little heed to any of his companions save one girl of about his own age, whose movements he would follow, and for the sound of whose words, though never addressed to him, he would listen, with the speechless devotion which perhaps is only felt at sixteen or seventeen, and then only by natures which fortunately are exceptional in this world. "The child is father to the man;" and we can be pretty certain from what we know of the man Dante what the boy Dante must have been.

The tranquil period was disturbed in 1282. Pope Nicholas, who, whether guilty of Simony or not--and one fears that the case against him must have been strong, since not only Dante, but even Villani charges him with the offence--at least deserved the blessing p.r.o.nounced on peacemakers, had died in the previous year at Viterbo, a town which, during this period, seems to have suited the Popes better than Rome as a place of residence. Charles, between whom and Nicholas no love had been lost, was resolved that the next Pope should not come from the powerful house of the Orsini, to a branch of which, the Guatani, the late Pontiff had belonged, and by an arrangement with the people of Viterbo, succeeded in getting the two most prominent clerical members of that house imprisoned. Thus he secured the election of a Frenchman, Simon of Brie, who, being a canon of Tours, took the name of Martin IV. His Papacy, though it lasted little more than three years, was eventful. He was elected in January, 1282, and on the following Easter Monday, March 30th, the people of Palermo, furious at the outrages of Charles's French troops, rose and ma.s.sacred every Frenchman upon whom they could lay hands. Charles's efforts to recapture the island were baffled, chiefly owing to the hostility of Manfred's son-in-law. King Peter of Aragon, also, with the help of his famous admiral, Roger of Loria, began about this time to prove a serious thorn in the side of the Angevin King. From the day of the "Sicilian Vespers," fortune turned against Charles. His son was taken prisoner by Loria in 1284, his life being spared only at the entreaty of Peter's wife, while he did not recover his liberty till 1289. The King himself died broken down with grief and disappointment, in the early days of 1285, and was followed a couple of months later by his creature, Martin IV., and, before the year was out, by his enemy, King Peter. It will be remembered that Peter and Charles were seen by Dante in the "Valley of Princes," awaiting their entry into Purgatory, and singing their Compline hymn in friendly accord: Martin IV. being placed higher up the mountain, among the gluttonous.

At Florence the course of affairs was not much affected by the reverses which befell Charles. At the same time, these, and a success gained by Guy of Montefeltro over John of Appia, a French officer whom Martin had appointed Count of Romagna, made the Guelf majority uneasy. Cardinal Latino's Const.i.tution was abandoned, and a new form of government adopted. The trading-cla.s.s resolved to get rid altogether of the representatives of feudal authority, weak as they had become,[26] and to this end the Fourteen were abolished, and the chief power placed in the hands of the Priors of the Arts, or, as we should say, the Masters of the great trading guilds. The number of those guilds which contributed members to the governing body seems to have been gradually increased. At first only three--the Clothmakers, the Money-changers, and the Wool-dealers--were thus honoured; but by the end of the century, at least twelve, seven greater and five lesser arts, were included. The Priors, as the Fourteen had done, held office for two months only, and various devices were employed to prevent any house or any person from becoming dangerously powerful. n.o.bles, in order to qualify for office, had to join a guild; and as the n.o.bles, or _grandi_, were more frequently on the Ghibeline side, this would yet further weaken that party.

Florence had now fairly entered upon a period of great prosperity. Her bankers lent money to kings; her trade extended all over Europe. Pisa, her most dangerous rival, had been utterly crushed by the Genoese in the great sea-fight off Meloria, with a slaughter which seems to have struck awe into the hearts even of the victors; and though she expelled her Guelfs four years later, in 1288, and, in 1291, under the brilliant leader Guy of Montefeltro, won some successes in the field, she was never again a power to be feared. Arezzo gave some trouble as a rendezvous for the banished Ghibelines; but the battle of Campaldino, in 1289, already referred to, broke her strength for a long time. Florence was thus free to attend to the arts of peace. The city walls were extended and new gates built; and several of the buildings, which to this day are among the glories of Florence, date from that period.

Still, however, much of the old cla.s.s-jealousy smouldered; and, as Machiavelli points out, all fear of the Ghibelines being removed, the powerful houses began to oppress the people. Giano della Bella, himself of n.o.ble family, casting in his lot with the commons, succeeded in carrying what were called the Ordinances of Justice, whereby, among other things, n.o.bles were absolutely disqualified from taking any part in the government. A measure so oppressive as this was bound to bring about its own appeal, and, as a matter of fact, within two years from its promulgation, Giano was driven into exile, and the n.o.bles were more turbulent than ever. It is at this time that the name of Corso Donati first comes into prominence.

Another event, which was to influence the destinies of Florence and of Dante, occurred shortly before Giano's overthrow. This was the election to the Papacy, in 1294, of Benedetto Guatani, known to history as Boniface VIII. The most vigorous Pope who had held the office for several generations, he soon let it be known that he intended to revive all the claims which his predecessors, Gregory VII. and Innocent III., had made to temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. His first efforts were devoted to getting Tuscany into his hands, and to this end he seems to have intrigued freely with the leaders of both parties in Florence.

In theory, of course, where all were Guelfs, the Pope ought to have had little trouble; but there were Guelfs and Guelfs, and it was not long before party differences were emphasised, and, so to say, crystallised, by party names. Curiously enough, these again appear first at Pistoia. A family feud there had led to two branches of the Cancellieri being distinguished as Black and White, and towards 1300 the names appear at Florence. The Donati headed the Black faction; their rivals, the Cerchi, the White. The latter represented the more orderly section of the community; the former reproduced all the worst features of the old Ghibeline aristocracy, though in the end it was the Whites who had to coalesce with the Ghibelines. At first, indeed, it would seem as if Boniface might have been willing to work with the Whites. He sent for Vieri de' Cerchi, the leader of that party, and tried to induce him to live peaceably with the other side. Vieri, for reasons which we can only conjecture, replied curtly that he had no quarrel with any one; and Boniface resorted to the old expedient of sending a Cardinal--Matthew of Acquasparta--to reconcile the factions.

We have now reached the critical year of Dante's life--that in which he held the office of Prior. But for the events of this and the next two years, it may be doubted whether the _Commedia_ would ever have come into existence, at least in the form in which six centuries have studied and admired it. Henceforth Dante's own history, rather than that of his times, will be our chief subject.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] In 1300, when the Black and White factions arose, we find among the twenty-eight houses enumerated by Machiavelli, as the chief on either side, only _three_ which in the old days had belonged to the Ghibeline party.

CHAPTER V.

DANTE'S EXILE

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Dante's name begins to appear in public doc.u.ments as taking a share in the business of the State. Thus he spoke in the "Council of the Hundred" on December 10, 1296, and in the following March, in opposition, it would seem, to a proposal of a grant to King Charles II. of Apulia. In May, 1299, he acted as amba.s.sador from Florence to the neighbouring city of San Gemignano, the only one of all the numerous emba.s.sies ascribed to him by some biographers in which modern criticism will still allow us to believe.

Finally, in 1300, probably from June 15th to August 15th, he served his term as Prior.

The Const.i.tution of Florence at this time was somewhat complicated. It will be sufficient to say here that the government was carried on by a committee of six priors, who held office for two months only; and that in order to be eligible for the offices of State a man had to be enrolled in one of the twelve trading guilds known as Arts, of which seven ranked as "greater," five as "less." Dante belonged to one of the "greater arts," that of the _speziali_, "dealers in spices," which included the apothecaries and, as it is believed, the booksellers. The number of priors was so large, and their tenure of office so short, that the selection of any particular citizen would hardly imply more than that he was regarded as a man of good business capacity; but in 1300 public affairs in Florence were in such a critical state, that one may well suppose the citizens to have been especially careful in their choice. In the previous April an accusation had been brought by Lapo Salterelli (afterwards one of Dante's fellow-exiles, not held by him in much esteem), who then was Prior, against three citizens of Florence--Simon Gherardi, Noffo Quintavalle, and Cambio, son of Sesto, of conspiring against the State. The facts are somewhat obscure, but, as it appears that they were all connected with the Papal Court, and that Boniface made strong efforts to get the fine imposed on them remitted, we may conjecture that they had in some way abetted his scheme of "getting Tuscany into his hands." In a remarkable letter addressed to the Bishop of Florence, in which a good deal of the argument, and even some of the language, of Dante's _De Monarchia_ is curiously paralleled, of course from the opposite point of view, the Pope requires the attendance before him of Lapo (whom he styles _vere lapis offensionis_) and the other accusers. As may be supposed, no notice was taken of this requisition, and the fines were duly enforced.

Boniface's letter is dated from Anagni, on May 15th. Before it was written, the first actual bloodshed in the feud between the Black and White parties had taken place. Some of the young Donati and Cerchi, with their respective friends, were in the Piazza di Santa Trinita on May 1st, looking on at a dance. Taunts were exchanged, blows followed, and "Ricoverino, son of Messer Ricovero de' Cerchi, by misadventure got his nose cut off his face." The leading Guelfs, seeing what a chance the split in their party would offer to the Ghibelines, sought the mediation of the Pope. Boniface was of course willing enough to interfere, and, as has been said, sent Matthew of Acquasparta, Cardinal of Ostia, a former General of the Franciscans, to Florence as peacemaker. He arrived just about the time when the new Priors, including, as we must suppose, Dante, were entering on office, and was received with great honour. But when it came to measures of pacification, he seems to have had nothing better to suggest than the selection of the Priors by lot, in place of their nomination (as had hitherto been the custom) by their predecessors and the chiefs of the guilds. "Those of the White party," says Villani, "who controlled the government of the country, through fear of losing their position, and of being hoodwinked by the Pope and the Legate through the reform aforesaid, took the worser counsel, and would not obey." So the familiar interdict was launched once more, and the Legate departed.