Ravenna, a Study Part 17

In his lectures upon Poetry one of his most eager pupils would seem to have been his best friend and host, Guido Novello, who evidently knew well at least those parts of the _Divine Comedy_, chiefly the _Inferno_ be it noted, which deal with his ancestors, for he quotes one of the most famous of them--an unforgettable line spoken by his aunt Francesca da Rimini:

"Questi che mai da me non fia diviso."

in a sonnet of his own[2].

[Footnote 2: Cf. _Ultimo Rifugio_, p. 384, where the sonnet is given in full.]

After the lord Guido Novello, we must name the archbishop of Ravenna, Rainaldo Concorreggio, as among Dante's friends. It is possible that he had known Dante at the University of Bologna and he had been a chaplain of Boniface VIII. He was a brave man, learned in theology, law, and music, and devoted to his religion, an eager student, and he had composed a treatise which has come down to us upon Galla Placidia and her church.

And then there was Giotto who came to paint if not in S. Maria in Porto fuori, certainly in S. Giovanni Evangelista. He was Dante's dear friend and it was probably at the poet's suggestion he had been invited to Ravenna. We do not know whether these two men attended Dante's lectures. But the true audience there which came simply to hear was probably various, consisting of poets, notaries, and all sorts of men, some of whom were Dante's friends and companions. There was Ser Dino Perini, Ser Pietro di Messer Giardino--he was a notary--and Fiduccio dei Milotti, who walked with Dante in the Pineta.

All these names have come down to us in the Latin eclogues written by Dante while in Ravenna to his friend Giovanni del Virgilio--del Virgilio because he could so well imitate Virgil.

These eclogues are full of shrewd and curious thought, a real correspondence, and they help us to see the men who surrounded the poet in Ravenna. They do not, however, give us so extraordinary an impression of the strength and keenness of Dante's powers of observation as many a pa.s.sage in the _Divine Comedy_ in which Ravenna and the rude and fierce world of the Romagna of that day live for ever. It is in answer to the inquiries of the great _Guido of Montefeltro_ that Dante speaks of Romagna in the _Inferno_. Feeble and anaemic though the great lines become in any translation, even so all their virtue is not lost:

"Never was thy Romagna without war In her proud tyrants' bosoms, nor is now; But open war there left I none. The state Ravenna hath maintained this many a year Is steadfast. There Polenta's eagle[1] broods, And in his broad circ.u.mference of plume O'ershadows Cervia[2]. The green talons[3] grasp The land, that stood e'erwhile the proof so long And piled in b.l.o.o.d.y heap the host of France.

The old mastiff of Verrucchio and the young[4]

That tore Montagna[5] in their wrath still make Where they are wont, an augre of their fangs, Lamone's[6] city and Santerno's[7] range Under the lion of the snowy lair[8], Inconstant partisan, that changeth sides Or ever summer yields to winter's frost.

And she whose flank is washed of Savio's wave[9]

As 'twixt the level and the steep she lies, Lives so 'twixt tyrant power and liberty."

[Footnote 1: The coat of the Polenta.]

[Footnote 2: Cervia, the least secure of the Polenta possessions.]

[Footnote 3: The green lion of the Ordelaffi of Forli.]

[Footnote 4: Malatesta and Malatestino, lords of Rimini, deriving from Verrucchio, a castle in the hills.]

[Footnote 5: The Malatesta were Guelfs, Montagna de' Parcitati, whom they murdered, was the leader of the Ghibelline party in Rimini.]

[Footnote 6: Faenza.]

[Footnote 7: Imola.]

[Footnote 8: Maghinardo Pagano, whose arms were a blue lion in a white field.]

[Footnote 9: Cesena.]

All Romagna with its untamable fierceness and confusion lies in these lines which, as Dante wrote them, seem as unalterable as those in which the creation of the world is described.

Nor is Dante forgetful of the great destiny that had been Ravenna's.

In the sixth canto of the _Paradiso_ it is Justinian himself, "_Cesare fui e son Giustiniano_" who recounts to Dante the victories of the Roman eagle:

"When from Ravenna it came forth and leap'd The Rubicon,"

or when

"with Belisarius Heaven's high hand was linked,"

or when

"The Lombard tooth with fang impure Did gore the bosom of the Holy Church Under its wings, victorious, Charlemagne Sped to her rescue."

Nor is Dante forgetful of Ravenna's other claims to glory. In the seventh heaven, which is the planet Saturn, led by Beatrice, he finds S. Romualdo, and speaks of S. Peter Damiano, and blessed Peter _Il Peccatore_, the founder of the church of S. Maria in Porto fuori, two of them of the Onesti house of Ravenna.

"In that place was I Peter Damiano And Peter the sinner dwelt in the house Of our blest Lady on the Adriatic sh.o.r.e."

Of the earlier Podesta, too, he is not unmindful:

"Arrigo Mainardi, Pier Traversaro,...

Wonder not, Tuscan, if thou seest me weep When I recall those once loved names ...

With Traversaro's house and Anastagio's, Each race disinherited."

With the pitiful story of Francesca da Polenta we have seen how he dealt and how he spoke of Guido Vecchio. These people live because of him, and Ravenna in the Middle Age still holds our interest and our love because he dwelt there and she harboured him.

It was in her service, too, he met his death as we have seen, and in her church of the Friars Minor that he was laid to rest by Guido Novello.

Nine months later the lord of Ravenna received the first complete copy of the _Divina Commedia_, made by Jacopo Alighieri from his father's autograph. A very curious incident is related by Boccaccio in connection with this. It was Dante's custom, Boccaccio tell us, "whenever he had done six or eight cantos, more or less, to send them from whatever place he was in before any other had seen them to Messer Cane della Scala, whom he held in reverence above all other men; and when he had seen them, Dante gave access to them to whoso desired. And having sent to him in this fashion all save the last thirteen cantos, which he had finished, but had not yet sent him, it came to pa.s.s that, without bearing it in his mind that he was abandoning them, he died.

And when they who were left behind, children and disciples, had searched many times, in the course of many months, amongst all his papers, if haply he had composed a conclusion to his work, and could by no means find the remaining cantos; and when every admirer of his in general was enraged that G.o.d had not at least lent him to the world so long that he might have had opportunity to finish what little remained of his work; they had abandoned further search in despair since they could by no means find them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANTE'S TOMB]

"So Jacopo and Piero, sons of Dante, both of them poets in rhyme, moved thereto by certain of their friends, had taken it into their minds to attempt to supplement the parental work, as far as in them lay, that it might not remain imperfect, when to Jacopo, who was far more zealous than the other in this work, there appeared a wondrous vision, which not only checked his foolish presumption but showed him where were the thirteen cantos which were wanting to this Divine Comedy and which they had not known where to find. A worthy man of Ravenna whose name was Piero Giardino, long time a disciple of Dante's, related how, when eight months had pa.s.sed after the death of his master, the aforesaid Jacopo came to him one night near to the hour that we call matins, and told him that that same night a little before that hour he, in his sleep, had seen his father, Dante, approach him, clad in whitest garment, and his face shining with an unwonted light; whom he seemed to ask if he were yet living, and to hear in reply that he was, but in the true life, not in ours. Whereon he seemed further to ask him if he had finished his work or ever he pa.s.sed to that true life; and if he had finished it, where was the missing part, which they had never been able to find. To this he seemed to hear again in answer, 'Yea! I finished it.' Whereon it seemed that he took him by the hand and led him to that chamber where he was wont to sleep when he was living in this life; and touching a certain spot said, 'Here is that which ye so long have sought.' And no sooner was uttered that word than it seemed that both Dante and sleep departed from him at the same moment. Wherefore he averred that he could not hold but come and signify what he had seen, that they might go together and search in the place indicated to him, which he held most perfectly stamped in his memory, to see whether a true spirit or a false delusion had shown it him. Wherefore since a great piece of the night still remained, they departed together and went to the place indicated, and there found a mat fixed to the wall, which they lightly raised and found a recess in the wall which neither of them had ever seen, nor knew that it was there; and there they found certain writings all mouldy with the damp of the wall and ready to rot had they stayed there much longer; and when they had carefully removed the mould and read, they saw that they contained the thirteen cantos so long sought by them. Wherefore, in great joy, they copied them out, and after the author's wont sent them first to Messer Cane and then joined them on, as was meet, to the imperfect work. In such a manner did the work of so many years see its completion."

As Boccaccio tells us, Guido Novello had scarce buried Dante in that temporary tomb in the church of the Friars Minor when he lost his lordship. On April 1, 1322, he was elected captain of the people in Bologna, and when he was about to return to Ravenna he suddenly heard that the archbishop had been murdered and that the city was in the hands of his enemies. Do what he would he never returned to his own city, and thus his intentions with regard to the tomb of the poet were never carried out. The n.o.ble sepulchre which Guido had planned was not built and the body of Dante reposed in the ancient sarcophagus in which it had been first placed. There it remained when Boccaccio came to Ravenna, probably in 1346 and certainly in 1350, as the bearer of a gift from the Or San Michele Society to Beatrice di Dante, then a nun in S. Stefano dell' Uliva.

Boccaccio, it will be remembered, had in his life of Dante bitterly upbraided Florence for her treatment of her greatest son, and to his blame had added a prophecy that she would soon repent of her shameful ingrat.i.tude and would envy Ravenna "the body of him whose works have held the admiration of the whole world." This prophecy fulfilled itself many times and first in 1396. In that year, upon December 22, Florence made the first of her many demands for the body of Dante, which she now wished to bury in S. Maria del Fiore. The demand, as Boccaccio had foreseen, was refused. It was repeated in 1429 and again refused. By 1476, when her next attempt was made, Ravenna had pa.s.sed into the power of the Venetian Republic. It was therefore to Venice that Florence now turned through the Venetian amba.s.sador, who is said to have been none other than Bernardo Bembo.

Bembo's request on behalf of Florence was, of course, a failure, but he seems to have himself repaired the tomb and to have placed upon it an epitaph.

"Exigua tumuli Dantes hic sorte jacebas Squallenti nulli cognite pene situ.

At nunc marmoreo subnixus conderis arcu Omnibus et cultu splendidiore nites Nimirum Bembus musis incensus ethruscis Hoc tibi quem in primis hoc coluere dedit.

Ann Sal. mcccclx.x.xiii. vi. Kal. Jvn.

Bernardus Bemb. Praet. aere suo Posuit."

His work of reparation and of adornment was carried out by Pietro Lombardo who was already at work in Ravenna for the Venetian republic, the sculptured effigy of Dante in relief being also from his hand.

But Florence was by no means at the end of her resources. In 1509 Ravenna had pa.s.sed into the hands of the pope. In 1519 Leo X., a Medici, being on the throne of Peter, the Accademia Medicea of Florence pet.i.tioned the pope (among the signatories of the pet.i.tion was Michelangelo, who offered to "make a worthy sepulchre for the divine poet in an honoured place" in Florence), to be allowed to carry away the bones of Dante from Ravenna to the City of Flowers. The pope gave the Florentine envoys the permission they required as was expected. They proceeded to Ravenna and opened the sarcophagus; but when they lifted the lid, they found it empty, save for "a fragment of bone and a few withered leaves of the laurel which had adorned the poet's head." From that time till our own day the resting place of Dante's bones has been a complete mystery.

It is recorded that in the middle of the seventeenth century the Franciscans rebuilt and repaired the so-called chapel of Braccioforte at S. Francesco, which till then had been joined by a portico to the tomb of Dante. In 1658 this portico among other alterations was removed, and the exterior of the tomb itself was reconstructed with an entrance into the Piazza, as we see it. The interior of the tomb was, however, left in some confusion so that the papal legate determined himself to repair it. In this he met with much opposition from the friars who claimed, as of old, jurisdiction over the sepulchre.

Nevertheless he completed the work, and in 1692 placed the following upon the tomb:

Exulem a Florentia Dantem Liberalissime Excepit Ravenna.

Vivo fruens Mortuum colens Magnis cineribus licet in parvo magnifici parentarunt Polentani Principes erigendo Bembus Praetor Luculentissime extruendo Praetiosum Musis et Apollini Mausoleum Quod injuria temporum pene squallens E. mo Dominico Maria Cursio Legato Joanne Salviato Prolegato Magni civis cineres Patriae reconciliare Cultus perpetuitate curantibus S. P. Q. R.

Jure Ac Aere suo Tanquam Thesaurum suum munivit Instauravit ornavit A.D. MDCXCII.

Outside the tomb he placed his coat-of-arms, and on either side that of the legate of the province and that of the Franciscan Order. In 1760 the third restoration was undertaken and the tomb a.s.sumed the form we now see and was given yet another inscription: