Blochet’s,[327] he has brought—so Parodi admits—fresh and varied
evidence; and this part of the claim may now be regarded as largely
substantiated. The second claim: that Dante actually knew, and drew from,
the Moslem legend “is” says the Italian reviewer, “and will remain, I
fear, incapable of demonstration.”[328] Yet he admits that the parallels
adduced between the Moslem Hell and Dante’s Inferno, and still more
between the _Miradj_ and the _Paradiso_, are such as to arouse perplexity
and astonishment in a mind hostile to, or unconvinced by, the theory of
the learned Spaniard. The parallels he interprets[329] as remarkable
instances of the similar working of human imagination on similar topics,
all over the world. Whether such a hypothesis meets all the facts may
still be an open question. But there can be no question whatever that
if Dante, who certainly owes the biggest debt to his “true precursor,”
Virgil, be indebted also to the _Miradj_ or other Mohammedan legend,[330]
he has more than repaid his debt in the splendid originality with which
he has bent and transformed such material to his own higher purposes:
a use which implies masterly assimilation and adaption, and amounts to
creative work.
Yet we would venture to plead for an open mind, even on the subject of
Asín’s second contention, and venture to ask whether the _Gospel of
Barnabas_ does not contribute some little additional force to the Spanish
professor’s argument? When all deductions have been made, has he not gone
far towards proving that Dante was more definitely indebted to Moslem
thought and legend than has been hitherto believed; and in particular
that he may have drawn, directly or indirectly, from Mohammedan sources
the architectonic idea of “Hell,” and other parts of his scheme of
which the affinity with “Barnabas” has been noted in the preceding
pages? If so, we may with some probability attribute to those same
sources the occasional striking identity of phraseology which we have
observed—regarding them as, in some sense, sources both for Dante and
for “Barnabas”; though in some cases it is difficult to believe that the
so-called “Barnabas” is not quoting Dante from memory.
The man who placed the Moslem Captain Saladin and the Moslem Philosophers
Averroes and Avicenna in the same region of the other world as his own
dear master Virgil[331]; who placed the condemned Averroist, Sigieri of
Brabant, in the Fourth Heaven as companion of the recognised Doctors
of the Church, and put an eulogy of him into the mouth of his opponent
Thomas Aquinas,[332] would surely not be willing to borrow from Moslem
sources ideas and materials for his mighty building—
al quale ha posta mano e cielo e terra.[333]
That suitable material was in existence (though in the Arabic language)
has been abundantly proved. From the various mediaeval forms of the
Mohammedan legend of the Prophet’s visit to the other world, Professor
Asín draws numerous and striking parallels to the _Divina Commedia_. The
topography of Hell, with its most infamous of sinners in the lowest pit,
the scheme of the Heavens, which, like Dante’s, follows the Ptolemaic
system of concentric spheres, and many more detailed analogies. He
finds the closest affinity in a writer of the same century, Ibn Arabi,
a Spanish thinker, who died twenty-five years before Dante was born. By
this Arabi the legend—which may have formed the basis of much of the
eschatology of “Barnabas”—was presented together with a mystical and
allegorical interpretation, such as Dante himself suggests for his own
work in the Epistle to Can Grande.[334] Dante’s noble contemporary,
Raymond Lull, seems to have known this book of Arabi’s in the original.
Dante was not, like Raymond, an Arabic scholar, but he may well have
become, by oral means, acquainted with something of its substance.
The court of Alfonso X of Seville, into which Dante’s Brunetto plunged
in the abortive embassy of 1260, was a hive of Moslem learning and
speculation. And though Brunetto’s visit was but short (and from this
point Dr. Parodi does not fail to draw full capital), he was not
the only Florentine who found his way to Seville.[335] Commercial
relations between Tuscany and Seville were alive in Dante’s day; and the
intercourse of trade brings with it a measure of intellectual commerce.
The Papal Court to which the Poet paid his fatal visit as Florentine
Ambassador must still have held fresh memories of St. Peter Pascual, who
was conversant with the Mohammedan legends of Hell and Paradise; and
in Ricoldo of Montecroce Dante had an illustrious fellow-townsman who
was notably learned in Moslem lore,[336] though missionary travels kept
the good Dominican away from Florence during the years of the Poet’s
residence, and he only returned as Prior of Sta. Maria Novella in 1301,
the year of Dante’s exile, and died the year before his death, in 1320.
Altogether, there seems good reason to believe that Mohammedan materials,
if not actual Mohammedan sources, were accessible to Dante, and that with
large-hearted tolerance he was content to use them, and so to give them
an immortality which they could not otherwise have achieved.
Thus we may conjecture a definite relation between “Barnabas” and the
_Divine Comedy_: not through a debt of either to other (unless it be of
“Barnabas” to Dante), but through a measure of common ancestry.
VII
DANTE AND THE CASENTINO
Li ruscelletti che de’ verdi colli
Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno.
—_Inf._ xxx. 64 _sq._
The “Apostle of Freedom” must needs be a patriot among his own people;
and patriotism involves readiness to fight for the community. Dante’s
temperament—like that of scores of our young poets and artists who have
fought and fallen in the Great War—was not naturally at home in the
practice of arms. Yet he took his place and “did his bit” as a valiant
Guelf of Florence in the battle of Campaldino; and so the Casentino
valley still speaks to us to-day of a thirteenth century “Student
in Arms.” It speaks to us, again, of an exiled patriot, who went,
“seeking freedom,” “through well-nigh all the regions in which” the
Italian “tongue was spoken,”[337] and in the early days of his lifelong
banishment found shelter from his foes with the hospitable Conti Guidi,
and a comforting atmosphere of appreciation and respect as antidote to
the _piaga della fortuna_ and the _dolorosa povertà_ of an outcast.
The Valley has also for us, as it had already for Dante, hallowed
associations redolent of that “freedom of spirit” which comes to a simple
and austere life lived for highest ideals. St. Francis, whose name still
lingers in the Casentino, was, in a true sense, an “Apostle of Freedom”
too. So perhaps no apology is needed for associating with the other
essays in this volume a narrative of a visit paid to the scenes so
familiar both to St. Francis and to Dante. Since the words above were
written, Italy has herself officially set her seal upon the thought
contained in them.
“This could be no ordinary centenary,” writes Lina Waterfield (of the
Sexcentenary celebrations of Sept., 1921). “Italy had won the boundaries
Dante desired her to possess, and in honouring him she celebrated her
victory of complete liberation. The official visits ... to the castles of
the Casentino ... and to the battlefield of Campaldino, where he fought
for ‘Libertas’ in 1289, were all undertaken in the spirit of exalted
patriotism. Sometimes the poet was forgotten, or rather merged in the
spirit of ‘Italianità,’ when the rafters of the mediaeval banqueting hall
of Poppi rang to the cries of ‘Viva Fiume’! September 16th was spent
in the Casentino. Next day all Florence turned out to see the pageant
of victorious Florentines returning from Campaldino, perhaps the most
decisive battle ever fought in Tuscany, for it broke the power of the
Ghibelline nobles. ‘Evviva la Libertà!’”
Meanwhile, at Ravenna, a great band of Franciscan Tertiaries had paid
their homage at the Poet’s tomb.
And now for the record of a pre-war pilgrimage to the Casentino.
From Pontassieve, the third station on the railway line between Florence
and Arezzo, a drive of some four hours will take you into the heart
of the Casentino; into a country well worth a visit for its own wild
and delicate beauty, but rendered immeasurably more interesting by its
thronging memories of Dante.
The Casentino is the valley of the Upper Arno, whose course from its
source on Monte Falterona is sketched by the poet in those strangely
bitter lines put into the mouth of Rinier da Calboli in Purgatory,[338]
while its trickling tributary streams, bathing the verdant slopes, are
vividly described in a single _terzina_ by poor parched Adamo in Hell—
Li ruscelletti che de’ verdi colli
Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno
Facendo i lor canali freddi e molli.[339]
We are in the country of the famous Conti Guidi, that stalwart family
who so successfully maintained their feudal sway amid an environment of
burgher republicanism; the clan of strong men who, for more than four
centuries at least, were masters of this fertile district which stretches
from the slopes of Falterona southward to the walls of Arezzo—that city
of “curs” from which Arno “turns aside its nose in scorn.”[340]
The offspring of the romance[341] of Guido Vecchio and “la buona
Gualdrada,”[342] this grim four-branched family—the Guidi of Porciano,
of Romena, of Battifolle and of Dovandola—they have left their lasting
mark upon the country. Three of their castles remain, castles in which
Dante was harboured in the earlier years of his exile. Porciano—playfully
referred to, surely, in the “brutti porci” of Riniero?[343]—and Romena
both in picturesque ruin; Poppi (Arnolfo’s first draft, as it is said,
for the similar Palazzo Vecchio at Florence) repaired throughout the
centuries, since Count Francesco handed it over in 1440 to Neri Capponi,
representative of the Florentine Republic.
We are in the country of Campaldino, the battle where Dante fought,
and Corso Donati and Vieri de’ Cerchi, soon to be leaders of opposing
factions in their native town, performed prodigies of valour side by
side: the battle where on St. Barnabas’ Day in 1289 the Guelf party
decisively reversed the humiliation of twenty-nine years before, and that
under the very walls of the Convent of Certomondo, founded by the Guidi
two years after Montaperti, in thanksgiving for that bloody victory—
Lo strazio e ’l grande scempio
Che fece l’ Arbia colorata in rosso.[344]
We are in the country of St. Francis of Assisi, Dante’s great religious
ideal; for a morning’s drive or walk up the steep road from Bibbiena
brings us right up to the foot of the “Rude crag betwixt Tiber and
Arno”[345] which all Christendom reveres.
In taking the old road over the Consuma Pass from Pontassieve, we are
following in the tracks of the Florentine host as it marched forth in
June, 1289. After much discussion as to the best route, as Villani and
Dino Campagni tell us,[346] they wisely decided to take this steeper and
more perilous but shorter path. A short way beyond Pontassieve they would
have left the Val d’ Arno, to strike the river again but a few miles from
its source. They left it flowing north towards Florence; they would find
it again running southwards in the direction of Arezzo.
As Dante rode up from the valley with his comrades, his eyes so quick
to detect the characteristic features and moods of Nature would note
the growing severity of the landscape—in his day perhaps less marked
than now, when feckless generations of short-sighted inhabitants have
denuded the hills of their timber. As the road wound up the steep he
would glance now north, now south, and perhaps occasionally back to the
west. Northwards he would see towering up the mass of Monte Morello, the
bare heap of a mountain that rises above his native city. Besides it his
eye would light upon the small but conspicuous wooded hill of Monte
Senario, on which, nearly sixty years before, the sainted founders of
the Servite Order had established themselves: Florentines all of good
family, and one a scion of that famous house of the Amidei whose quarrel
with the Buondelmonti in 1215 had already begun to bear fruit of internal
discord in the city—the first drops of the storm that was to sweep poor
Dante into exile. Westward, beyond the Arno, the hill of the “Incontro”
would catch his eye, the traditional site of the meeting between Saint
Francis and Saint Dominic which has provided an inspiring theme for so
many artists; while on the south his view would be bounded by the thickly
wooded ridge of Vallombrosa, where San Giovanni Gualberto had gathered
more than two centuries before (in 1015) a band of followers for whom
the discipline of San Miniato had grown too lax. Almost at the watershed
of the Consuma range, he would observe the track upon the right—only a
few years ago (1905) converted into a _strada carrozzabile_—by which
one might pass on horseback or on foot from Vallombrosa to Consuma,
and so into the Casentino. Halting, perhaps, for a few moments in the
village of Consuma—probably not very different then from what it is
to-day, a collection of charcoal-burners’ dwellings—then trotting down
the other side, past the hamlet of Ponticelli, swerving to the right
over the shoulder of a ridge, they passed the ancient little hostelry of
Casaccia, and stopped, so tradition asserts, for rest and refreshment in
the bleakly situated Badiola, which crouches in the midst of a windswept
group of unhappy trees, on an outlying hillock to the left of the road,
looking down on the Casentino itself.
Resuming their downward journey with lighter hearts, yet some of them no
doubt a little fluttered already by the anticipation of an encounter (as
Dante confesses to have been on the morning of the battle),[347] they
would ride past the ill-omened mound which still gives to a neighbouring
hamlet, the grim name of Ommorto or _Omo Morto_, the spot where Adamo of
Brescia[348] was burned alive (as some think only a year before—1288)
for counterfeiting the coinage of Florence at the instigation of the
Conti Guidi of Romena. And but a little way further on that same Castle
of Romena would burst upon their view—the fortress with the seven-fold
circle of defensive walls which were to suggest to the poet, in his
sojourn of some fourteen years later, the _nobile castello_[349] of
Limbo, wherein the spirits of the just and illustrious pagans lived their
dignified life—_senza martiri_,[350] but also _senza speme_.[351]
The ruins that can be visited to-day shew but the vague outlines of its
former grandeur; yet one may see the green-carpeted _cortile_ where
the great spirits walked to and fro _sopra il verde smalto_,[352] and
fragments at least of the very walls within whose shelter the poet
probably elaborated this and much else of the Inferno: and within the
outer circle of defences, the famous Fonte Branda[353] whose cool waters
were recalled to mind by poor Adamo in his torment—waters sipped to-day
by the devout Dantist pilgrim almost as though it were indeed a holy
well.[354]
We hear of no assault made upon the Castle in passing. Probably the place
was too strong and the work before the Guelf Army needed haste. On the
other hand the force within, thinned to strengthen the Ghibelline host
below, was no doubt too weak to attempt an effective onslaught upon the
cavalcade; though, as Dino implies, the Florentines were passing through
awkward country, wherein “if they had been found of the foe, they had
received no small damage.”[355]
The armies faced one another in the valley’s bottom, on that level
stretch of alluvial land which lies to the north of the rock on which
stands the Castle and the town of Poppi. North and south the field was
commanded by a Guidi fortress; it stretched like a vast “lizza” or
tilting-ground between Poppi and Romena.
The corn would be well advanced on that eleventh of June: not so
rich a promise, perhaps as that on which the daughter of Ugolino
della Gherardesca afterwards commented so bitingly to the daughter
of Buonconte, when the ground had been fertilised with torrents of
Ghibelline blood.[356] Perchance the approaching harvest may have
been already ruined by the devastating march of the Aretines. But the
general features of the country would have lost none of their charm. The
graceful, whispering poplars and willows surely then as now lined Arno’s
banks, recalling to some of the elder warriors the poplars of Montaperti,
fringing the Biena, Malena and Arbia—the tall trees that still whisper
shudderingly of the day when their three streams ran red.
The vine-festoons—if then as now, and as in the Medicean days, the valley
was garlanded with vineyards—would still be in fresh verdure, and would
form an effective setting for the gay colours of a mediaeval armament.
Dante and his companions would indeed have as fair a scene to fight in
as poet or artist turned soldier could wish; albeit the day was cloudy,
presaging a night of storm.[357] Immediately behind the gaily decked
arena stood the bold grey mass of Poppi, and beyond this again the more
distant background of hills, flanked on the left by La Verna with its
hallowed and inspiring memories.
And what a glorious prospect of the whole field of battle had the ladies
of the Guidi household from the casements of that castle whose walls
are still adorned with fragments of _affreschi_, which Dante’s eyes
must have seen! All the pomp and pageantry of the war visible from a
place of security, a veritable eagle’s nest. And beyond the battle a
clear view across to Romena, Falterona and the sources of Arno; with a
peep, perhaps, of the castle of Porciano—the northernmost stronghold
of the clan since the practical demolition, after Montaperti, of the
neighbouring Castel Castagnajo.
Here in their own country they would have every confidence of success.
They would rejoice in the brave show of chivalry, the gorgeous
armour caparisons and banners—a spectacle of the meeting of the two
best-appointed hosts that the countryside had ever witnessed.[358] They
would watch with triumph the first irresistible charge of the Aretine
cavalry, which drove Dante and his fellows back in confusion upon their
infantry, and they would feel the victory already won.
They would mark with wonder and horror the unaccountable retreat of
Count Guido Novello, who was to have delivered a flank attack with his
hundred and fifty horse, remembering perchance with scorn that it was
his untimely flight which, twenty-three years before, had brought to a
premature end the Ghibelline domination in Florence.[359]
They would note the sudden move of Corso Donati and his Pistojesi, whose
charge upon the Aretine flank was the beginning of the end. Then came the
wholesale slaughter and pursuit, wherein unnerved warriors, forgetful of
everything but the fear of death, streamed in flight past Poppi and down
the valley towards Bibbiena. One of these hunted knights they may have
observed in the earlier stages of his flight; for the name and figure of
Buonconte di Montefeltro[360] would be well known to them. But if their
eyes were sharp and keen enough to catch a glimpse of him as he passed,
it was but a glimpse. His end none saw or knew till Dante met the dead
count’s spirit in Purgatory; though the scene of it, as there described,
may well be the faithful reminiscence of the Poet’s own impression as he
galloped with the pursuers towards Bibbiena.
The spot where Arno and Archiano meet is dear to every student of Dante,
though comparatively few are privileged to see it with their eyes.
And when you see it, it is just a confluence of two mountain-streams,
flanked by heaps of grey water-worn stones, and fringed by tall poplars
and brushwood—this in the flat bottom of a fertile and well cultivated
valley. But the rushing water has a voice unlike the sound of ordinary
streams: the grey piles of pebbles and boulders, the tall whispering
poplars and the bushes at their feet casting a dark line of shade along
the river’s brim—these have something pathetic, tragic, funereal in their
aspect.
One seems to see Buonconte[361] staggering to the brink, bursting his
way blindly through the hedge of trees and bushes, while his life-blood
ebbs out from the wounded throat, and leaves a crimson track upon the
plain—see him fall senseless, with just an instinctive crossing of
the arms and an inaudible invocation of the name of Mary, that was to
baulk the fiend of his prey. Then night falls, and the mountain tops
“from Pratomagno to the main ridge” of Apennine, and all the valley
between, are swathed in storm-clouds, and the _fossati_ are filled with
drenching rain. The Archiano dashes down its steep course from “above the
hermitage” of Camaldoli (whose founder, St. Romoald, has his place with
St. Benedict in Paradise),[362] a roaring, foaming torrent, and swirls
the corpse down the stream of Arno, unlocking the arms by force from that
cross upon the breast which had served the soul so well—
Sciolse al mio petto la croce
Ch’ i’ fe’ di me quando ’l doler mi vinse,[363]
and engulfs the body, soon to be covered with spoils of the river-bed.
It is but a short walk down the steep lane from Bibbiena and through the
meadows to the _imboccatura_, and the inhabitants of the hill-town may
well have witnessed from their walls many a like tragedy on that day,
as breathless Ghibellines at their last gasp found themselves caught in
the trap—pulled up suddenly by Arno or Archiano, and overtaken ere their
bewildered brains could decide what course to follow.
Far different memories from those of the northward plain cling to that
bold wooded peak which rises on the east of Bibbiena. The pilgrimage
to La Verna from that town is one of the most delightful that can be
imagined. After the first steep descent—for Bibbiena stands on the top
of a hill almost precipitous on every side—one mounts again, passing
through groves of tender spring green, the beautiful green of young oaks,
with rich, yellow-red soil as a foil to it; and then down a second time
past Campi into the fair valley of the Corsalone, with its long rows of
poplars like these of Campaldino and Montaperti. After that it is all
one long ascent, and for the most part a steep one. The lane winds up
through sparse woods again, mainly of small oaks, and is bordered, in
spring, by garlands of primroses and violets. For a time one loses sight
of the goal (which had been visible from Bibbiena, and again from above
Campi), though the view opens out wonderfully upon the left, up the Arno
valley past Poppi to Falterona. Then at last, after an hour or so of
steady climbing, the bold wooded cliff heaves in sight again, and one
distinguishes the buildings of the monastery perched high up on the edge
of a vast precipice. Another hour will bring us to its foot. As he toils
up to this sanctuary even the most devoted Dantist cannot but have in
mind, besides the eleventh Canto of _Paradiso_, certain passages also of
the _Fioretti_.
Every holy spot, almost, is marked by a chapel, wherein man’s handiwork
obscures—and dare we say mars?—while it exalts, the memories of the past.
It is all so unlike what Saint Francis saw when he rode up on his donkey
from the other side to take possession of Orlando’s gift of the ‘divoto
monte.’ Yet one cannot stand without emotion before the commonplace
chapel that marks the spot where the little birds came to welcome
him: “con cantare e con battere l’ ali,” making “grandissima festa e
allegrezza,” settling on his head and shoulders and arms and in his
bosom.[364] And when one has entered the portal, one is fain to see not
only the Chapel of the Stigmata, with the very spot marked out for honour
where in 1221 the Saint—
Da Cristo preso l’ ultimo sigillo
Che le sue membra due anni portarno,[365]