seen three years of war—and what a war!—ere his face first felt the touch
of the razor. They have sped forth from the fields, from the mines and
mills, and from luxurious homes where too much softness was in danger of
undermining their manhood. They have “climbed the steep ascent” of the
Hill of Valour—they have, in fact, heard and responded to a call like
that which came to Rinaldo after he had lain spell-bound in Armida’s
Garden, (xvii. 61)—
Signor, non sotto l’ ombra in piaggia molle
Tra fonti e fior, tra ninfe e tra sirene
Ma in cima all’ erto e faticoso colle
Della virtù è riposto il nostro bene.
“They in a short time have fulfilled a long time.” For them the fruits
of manhood have followed hard upon the bloom of youth. In them soft
gentleness is conjoined with royalty of mien and soldierly bearing.
In battle, Mars; in face, Eros; the cynosure of a world’s admiring
eyes—Behold Rinaldo!
Dolcemente feroce alzar vedresti
La regal fronte, e in lui mirar sol tutti.
L’ età precorse, e la speranza; e presti
Pareano i fior, quando n’ uscirò i frutti:
Se ’l miri fulminar nell’ arme avvolto,
Marte lo stimi: Amor, se scopre il volto.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
ANTONIO MASCHIO AND THE CELEBRATION OF 1865
The Dante Celebrations of the last fifty-six years—the years that mark
the duration of the Poet’s life—have always had about them, as was meet,
a touch of fervid Italian patriotism. For Dante is in a true sense
“Pater Patriae.” The sexcentenary of his birth in 1865 coincided with
the new dignity of Florence as temporary capital of a largely united and
independent Italy. It was celebrated by the unveiling of Dante’s statue
by Victor Emmanuel, protagonist of the New Italy in the chief Piazza of
his new Capital, and it was celebrated with military as well as civic
honours.
The Celebration of 1921, on the sexcentenary of the Poet’s death, was
marked again with patriotic fervour. The troops who had redeemed “Italia
irredenta” in the Great War offered a wreath of bronze and silver at his
shrine in Ravenna; and shouts of “Viva l’ Italia! Viva Fiume!” echoed in
the Banqueting Hall of the castle of Poppi in Casentino, where Dante had
been a guest of the Conti Guidi, and in sight of which he had fought as
a young man in defence of his native city. The patriotic cries had now
a new note of triumph about them, because Dante’s prophetic envisaging
of Italy as “one, and to be loved” and his incidental marking out of her
true boundaries had at last been verified.[377]
Between these two, on September 14th, 1908, Ravenna, his “last refuge,”
was the scene of a most enthusiastic ceremony, to which flocked
representatives of the as yet unredeemed Italian fringe, and men of Trent
and Trieste and Gorizia and Pola and Fiume claimed Dante as the prophet
of their own “italianità” and of their proximate liberation from the
foreign yoke.
There is a little-known incident connected with the first of these
Celebrations—that of 1865—which is worth recording, if only for its
simple pathos. The story of an attempt at Dante-worship that was motived
rather by personal loyalty than by patriotic ardour, yet was baulked by
the barrier set up by a foreign domination between a true-hearted Italian
and his goal.
Antonio Maschio[378] was close upon forty years old when the news came to
him in his humble Venetian dwelling that Italy was going to celebrate her
greatest Poet in his native City of Florence.
He was a simple gondolier, son of a small pork-butcher on the island
of Murano. In the year ’48, so notable in the annals of Italy’s fight
for freedom, he picked up some stray sheets of paper in a tobacconist’s
shop, on which were printed Cantos xiii. and xiv. of the _Inferno_. He
took them home and read and re-read them: From that day he took Dante
as his Master, and devoted all his spare moments to the study of the
_Divina Commedia_. He lived to see, as he conceived, Dante’s prophecy of
the “Veltro”—the great Liberator—fulfilled in 1871; when Victor Emmanuel
entered Rome, and before he died he was in correspondence with some of
the greatest Dante scholars in Italy and abroad.
Far advanced in his Dante studies in 1865, and over head and ears in love
with the great Poet, he dared to brave the Austrian frontier guards—for
Venetia was still Austrian territory—setting out on foot for Florence
to keep tryst with his Maestro “duca, signore e Maestro.” Before the
middle of March he packed up in two great bundles all the Dante material
he had collected and evolved, put a favourite “Dantino” in his pocket
and started with his precious burden on the adventurous pilgrimage. He
passed the first line of guards, posing as a wine-seller from Chioggia.
His great obstacle was the river Po, running high and with current all
too swift. Moreover it was night, and no boat was to be found. It was but
human to shrink back, but the love of Dante conquered his fear. Did he
recall the passage where Dante, shrinking from the wall of flame, hears
Virgil’s appeal: “Senti figlio, Fra Beatrice e te è questo muro”?[379]
Dauntless he flung himself into the chill waters and struck out for the
farther shore. In a life and death struggle with the current he lost his
precious bundles, and landed more dead than alive, with nothing in his
pocket but the little volume of the _Divina Commedia_; and he afterwards
declared that Dante had saved his disciple from drowning that night,
even as in his earthly life he had saved a child in the Baptistery at
Florence.[380] Next morning the hapless man fell into the hands of the
Sindaco of La Mesola, who handed him over to the police, and he suffered
a month’s durance in an Austrian prison, after which he was ignominiously
sent back to his native town.
It was a famous gathering on that 14th of May in the broad space before
the church of Santa Croce; and many learned and ingenious speeches marked
the occasion. But the Festival was the poorer by the enforced absence of
one who had risked his life to be there: Antonio Maschio, “il Gondolier
Dantista.”
APPENDIX II
DANTE AND THE POPE
Interesting on several grounds is the Encyclical of His Holiness Benedict
XV, published in the _Osservatore Romano_ of May 4th last, in which he
commends to all Catholic teachers and students the study of the works of
Italy’s greatest Poet. He seems to admit that a certain constraint lay
upon him in the matter, that the successor of St. Peter could not afford
to be silent while all the civilised world was sending up a chorus of
praise. That indeed, it would befit him to propose himself as Choragus:
“Jam vero tam mirifico quasi choro bonorum omnium non solum non deesse
Nos decet, sed quodammodo praeesse.” Yet the eulogy which he utters, if
here and there it suggests a touch of patronising, is, on the whole so
spontaneous and sincere in tone, that one is inclined to forgive the
half-evasion with which he manipulates the awkward fact of Dante’s fierce
invective—“perquam acerbe et contumeliose”—directed against the Holy
Father’s illustrious predecessors. First of all he suggests for Dante
the excuse of a harassed and embittered spirit, misled by the poison of
malicious tale-bearers; and next, with an appearance of candour which it
would be discourteous to discount, he asks, Who denies that there were
in those days; there were faults even in the ordained clergy—“Quis neget
nonnulla eo tempore fuisse in hominibus sacri ordinis haud probanda?”
... a somewhat general statement which might or might not include the
Infallible. For the rest, Dante is praised as a true-hearted Catholic—as
indeed he was—and as an extraordinarily effective teacher of the
Catholic Faith. The spirit and purpose of the _Divine Comedy_—the aim,
as set forth in the famous tenth Epistle[381]—and the Poet’s treatment
of his subject in his pictures of Hell, Paradise and Purgatory, all come
in for hearty commendation. His ever-living treatment of an ever-living
theme is rightly characterised as strikingly modern compared with
the revived Paganism of some modern poets. The teaching power of his
spiritual ideas outsteps the bounds of the archaic Ptolemaic system in
which they are framed. True to the teaching of his great master Aquinas,
he attracts moderns to that teaching by the sublimity of his poetic
genius. The Pope claims to know personally unbelievers who have been
converted to the Faith by the study of Dante.
This emphasis on Dante’s importance as a religious teacher is interesting
in view of Benedetto Croce’s recent critique, in which he dismisses the
theological aspect of Dante as irrelevant. In this connection it is worth
noting that a distinguished Friar has been lecturing in Rome on Dante’s
theology, and directly attacking Croce for his depreciation of the same.
We have thus two Benedicts disputing over the spirit of Dante, even as
the Archangel and another disputed over the body of Moses—Benedict the
Pope and Benedict the Philosopher, Critic and Minister of Education. That
the latter has the greater name in the realm of literary criticism, we
cannot doubt. His best friends go far to claim for him infallibility in
that line. The infallible claims of the former are confined to the region
of Faith and Morals; but if Dante could be called in as arbitrator he
would probably decide in favour of the Pope, pronouncing with regard to
his own religious teaching that it was meant to count, and does count. It
is, however, with no animus against the other Benedict in his official
capacity that His Holiness proceeds—making an excellent point, which
most of us would applaud—to note the absurdity of a State system of
secularised Education which tries to banish the Name and the thought of
God from the schools, and at the same time hold up the _Divina Commedia_
as an indispensable instrument of culture. Italian priests of to-day
are ready to defend the present Minister of Public Instruction as one
who, whatever his personal views may be, has endeavoured to mete out
evenhanded justice even to “denominational” Education.
APPENDIX III
DANTE THE POET
Benedetto Croce’s[382] contention is, of course, fundamentally true,
that Dante is first and last a Poet, and that it is the magnetism of his
poetic genius that attracts interest to all the varied subjects which
he touches. If he had not been a Poet, these essays would never have
been written; and the writer hopes that the poetic quality of his hero
will have been felt as a background all through the book. His lyrical
power is the driving force of his many-sided message. To the struggling
patriot, whether of 1848 or of 1918, he is a Tyrtaeus; to the artist in
poetry, a Horace (although he never saw the _Ars Poetica_); to the lover,
a Christian Anacreon; to the religious devotee, a Psalmist and Prophet
in one; to the student of human nature in its detail and its large epic
aspect, a Homer and a Virgil; in every aspect a supreme poet. The very
magnetism of his lyrical appeal will, however, continue to keep countless
disciples busy, in the future as in the past, exploring the by-ways
and investigating the by-products of his genius; gloating over his
obscurities, and glorying in everything, big or little, that Dante has
touched. Those “questioni dantesche” on the more puerile of which Croce
rightly pours his scorn,[383] will emerge to the end of the chapter—a
lush growth of mingled flowers and weeds witnessing to the extraordinary
fertility of the soil.
And we may go on to ask, what, exactly, is the value, or the nature
of that “lyrical quality” which Croce justly exalts if it is entirely
divorced from its content, its subject-matter?
True, Beauty has a value of its own, as Dante himself saw. In theory,
indeed, he makes Poetry a humble gilding of the didactic pill, on the
Horatian principle of _miscere utile dulci_; a beauteous fiction for a
moral purpose—“una verità ascosa sotto bella menzogna”[384] a “clumsy
device,” as Professor Foligno puts it, “to rivet the attention of readers
while the lessons of virtue and truth were expounded.”[385] In practice,
however, the author of the _Convivio_ “spoke as Love dictated”[386]—nay,
even in the _Convivio_ itself (as Prof. Foligno points out), in the
_envoi_ of the first Canzone,[387] he bids his poetry, if its argument
prove unintelligible, take heart of grace and draw attention to its own
sheer beauty—
Allor ti priego che ti ricomforte,
Dicendo lor, diletta mia novella.
“Ponete mente almen com’ io son bella!”
But lyrical form cannot exist as a mere abstraction. It must needs
express itself in words that have a meaning—in “subject-matter.” The Poet
sings of what is in his heart, and sings—
... A quel modo
Ch’ e’ ditta dentro;
he sings because he _must_. And Dante has this irresistible impulse of
the artist to express himself. He tells us in the XIXth chapter of the
_Vita Nuova_ the story of the birth of his canzone, “Donne ch’ avete
intelletto d’ amore,” the famous song by which Bonagiunta knew him in
Purgatory.[388] First, a great desire for utterance, then a pondering
over the appropriate mode, and finally, “I declare,” he says, “my tongue
spake as though by its own impulse and said—
Donne ch’ avete intelletto d’ amore.”[389]
That is the artistic impulse to create, and represents, indeed, the sum
total of his “Message” as conceived by many an artist. But Dante took
his message and his mission seriously; and unless we recognise as a
factor in his poetry this sense of responsibility for the gift, and for
the use of it—in however exalted a sense—as the handmaid of Religion, we
surely misconceive him. He is essentially (not accidentally) didactic,
prophetic, a conscious and purposeful inspirer of his own generation and
of those to come.
From the point of view of purely aesthetic criticism his “Theological
Romance,” his “Epic of man’s freewill,” with its massive architectural
framework and its recurring theological, philosophical, political and
otherwise didactic passages may be entirely secondary—may be, in fact,
so much awkward and obstructive material which the poet only reduces to
order and dominates by force of titanic genius.[390]
Dante certainly rises superior in fact to the contemporary theory
of the Art of Poetry which he repeats in the _Convivio_ and the _De
Vulgari Eloquentia_.[391] It is this which makes his verse to be, as
we have called it, the driving power of his message. But this homage
to the traditional theory is not mere lip-service. Supreme poet as he
is, he deliberately makes his sublime verse the instrument of spiritual
teaching. And in so doing only renders it the more sublime.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See esp. _Inf._ ix. 113; xx. 61: “Dante and the Redemption of Italy,”
p. 15.
[2] 1865: See _ib._ p. 19.
[3] _Par._ xxv. 1, 2.
[4] “Dante and Educational Principles,” pp. 83 _sqq._
[5] Nos. III and VI.
[6] Nos. I, II, IV, and VIII.
[7] Prof. Foligno has, of course, no responsibility for the opinions set
forth in this volume.
[8] _Le opere di Dante: testo critico della Società dantescha italiana,
etc._ Firenze: R. Bemporad & Figlio. MCMXXI. Cited in the notes as
“Bemporad.” In the case of quotations from the prose works, an attempt
has been made to consult the convenience of English readers by the
reference to the paging of Dr. Moore’s Oxford Edition as well as to that
of the _Testo critico_ (Bemporad).
[9] Nos. V and VII.
[10] This Sermon was preached in Lincoln Cathedral on Aug. 14th, 1921
(Twelfth Sunday after Trinity).
[11] _Par._ i. 6-8.
[12] See _Osservatore Romano_, May 4th, 1921. And _cf._ Appendix II.
[13] _Par._ xvii. 55.
[14] _Purg._ xxiv. 52-4.
[15] _Cf._ A. G. Ferrers-Howell, “Dante and the Troubadours,” in the
Memorial Volume, _Dante, Essays in Commemoration_, 1321-1921, London
Univ. Press, 1921.
[16] _Purg._ xxiv. 57.
[17] _Inf._ iii. 5, 6.
[18] _Purg._ xvii. 103-105.
[19] _Inf._ i. 118-20.
[20] _Purg._ xxiii. 71-74.
[21] _Par._ iii. 70-72, 85.
[22] _Par._ xxxiii. 145.
[23] _The Spiritual Message of Dante_, Williams & Norgate, 1914, p. 225.
[24] 1 John iv. 16.
[25] _Par._ xxx. 133-7.
[26] _Purg._ xx. 43.
[27] _Purg._ i. 1.
[28] _Par._ xxv. 5.
[29] A pathetic episode connected with this Celebration is related in
Appendix I, p. 165.
[30] _Giornale_, p. 215: Art. “Firenze e Italia nel concetto e nel cuore
di Dante.”
[31] _Giornale_, p. 344.
[32] A similar chorus of reverent homage to Dante as the good genius of
Italy’s fortunes, was evoked by the war, in the shape of “Dante e la
Guerra,” Nos. 6-9 of _Nuovo Convito_, June-Sept., 1917.
[33] _Par._ ix. 27.
[34] “To the Defenders of the Piave: November, 1917, to November, 1918.”
Art. in _Anglo-Italian Review_, Nov., 1918, p. 244.
[35] _Purg._ xxvii. 142.
[36] _Il Purgatorio_, p. 58.
[37] _Par._ xxxi. 85-89.
[38] _Inf._ i. 31-34.
[39] _Loc. cit._
[40] Italy is likened by Dante to a wood (_silva_) in _V.E._, I, xi.
[41] _Purg._ vi. 76-fin.
[42] _Purg._ vi. 91 _sqq._; _Mon._ I, xii.
[43] _Purg._ v. 61.
[44] See _Mon._ II, v. 132 _sqq._; 159 _sqq._, quoted below; pp. 355
_sq._, Oxf. Ed.; p. 379, Bemporad.
[45] _Inf._ xii. 1-21.
[46] _Defensor Pacis_ written c. 1324 (three years after Dante’s death)
to support the claims of the Emperor Lewis IX (of Bavaria) against Pope
John XXII, starts, as Dante does, from Aristotle and Holy Scripture, but
carries the relentless exposure of papal pretensions much further, and
strikes the note of appeal to a General Council which was one of the
watchwords of the Reformation.
[47] This theme he took up earlier in the Fourth Treatise of the
_Convivio_, chaps. iv. and v.
[48] _Cf._ especially his quotations from the _Aeneid_ in _Conv._
IV, iv. (Bemp., 252) and _Mon._ II, vii. 70 _sqq._ (Bemp., 381); the
Divine injunction is taken by Dante, almost as though the _Aeneid_ were
‘Scripture’!
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, momento,
Hae tibi erunt artes, pacique imponere morem;
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.
—_Aen._ vi. 852-4.
[49] _Inf._ i. 82.
[50] vi. 34-96.
[51] W. W. Vernon, _Readings on the Paradiso_, Vol. I, p. 199.
[52] _Par._ vi. 103-104.
[53] _Purg._ vii. 94; vi. 97.
[54] _Purg._ xvi. 106 _sqq._; 127 _sqq._
[55] _Purg._ vi. 76 _sqq._
[56] _Purg._ vi. fin.
[57] _Ep._ vii.
[58] _Cf._ _Purg._ x. 35.
[59] _Ep._ vii. 44, p. 410, Oxf. Ed.; p. 427, Bemporad.
[60] I. xii. 58; Oxf. Ed. p. 347; p. 365, Bemporad.
[61] _Purg._ i. 75.
[62] II, v. 158 _sqq._; Oxf. Ed. II, v. 17; p. 379, Bemporad.
[63] _Cf._ _Mon._ I, xi. Bemporad, pp. 362-364.
[64] _Mon._ I, v.
[65] _Od._ ix. 114-115. θεμιστεύει δὲ ἕκαστος Παίδων ἠδ’ ἀλόγων....
[66] οὐδ’ ἀλλήων ἀλέγουσιν.
[67] _Pol._ i. 2.
[68] It is interesting to note, in this connection, that when Dante,
in his work on “The Vulgar Tongue,” is seeking a _Literary_ Tribunal—a
sort of Academy of Letters—he asserts that where there is no Prince, his
presence may be supplied by ‘the gracious light of reason.’ There is no
king, he says, in Italy, as there is in Germany, to gather to his court
poets and _literati_ and form in his own person the centre of a brilliant
literary circle; but the members of such a court—the elements of such a
circle—are there, though scattered, and they have a bond of union in the
_gratioso lumine rationis_.—_V.E._ I, xviii. fin; Oxf. p. 389; Bemporad,
p. 336.
[69] _Mon._ I, xi. 78-110. Oxf., p. 346; Bemp., pp. 363 _sq._
[70] _Ep._ vii.
[71] _Par._ xxx. 133 _sqq._
[72] At the last moment before going to press, it is cheering to find
this contention (treated more fully by the present writer in an article
in the _Anglo-Italian Review_, Dec., 1918), corroborated by Prof. A. J.
Grant, who, in an article on “Dante’s conception of History” (_History_,
Vol. VI, Jan., 1922), speaks thus of the Poet’s praise of the Empire:
“It is a demand for a world-order resting on laws that are sensible and
generally known, and which control the lives of states as well as of
individuals. It is little exaggeration to say that it is a plea for a
League of Nations; and the _De Monarchia_ is not a bad handbook for those
who are called upon to speak for the League” (p. 229).
[73] _Par._ xxii. 151.
[74] _Mon._ iii. 16; Oxf., p. 376; Bemp. p. 411.
[75] _Mon._ I, xi; Oxf. p. 345; Bemporad, p. 364.
[76] _Mon._ I, xi., _ut supra_.
[77] _Mon._ I, xi.
[78] III, iv. init. Oxf., p. 365; Bemporad, p. 394. Dante combats and
refutes the traditional argument in vogue in his day, which assumed that
the creation of sun and moon in Gen. i. had a mystical reference to the
Spiritual and Temporal powers respectively and argued that therefore,
because the moon derives her _light_ from the sun, the Temporal must owe
its _authority_ to the Spiritual; but, later in the chapter (Oxf., p. 366
_sq._; Bemporad, p. 396), he seems to admit a workable _analogy_ between
the luminaries and the authorities.
[79] _Purg._ xvi. 106 _sqq._
[80] _Par._ vi. 121 _sq._
[81] 2 Cor. iii. 17.
[82] _Inf._, i. p. 124.
[83] _Cf._ _V.E._, I, vii. 28; p. 382, Oxf.; p. 324, Bemporad. _Ipsum
naturantem, qui est Deus._
[84] _Par._ xxxiii. 145.
[85] Oxf. Ed., p. 282; Bemporad, p. 222.
[86] _Gerusalemme Liberata_, xvii. 63.
[87] The best spirits among our late enemies have already begun to
reap the reward of their deadly earnestness in a wider and saner point
of view: a realisation of variety of national characteristics and
an appreciation of them; a longing to clear away misapprehensions,
and “openly to call injustice injustice—to forgive and to expect
forgiveness.” See an excellent article by Hedwig von Saenger in _Student
Movement_, Oct., 1921.
[88] _Il comico, l’ umorismo e la satira nella Divina Commedia._ Da
Enrico Sannia. 2 vols. Milan, 1909.
[89] _Vita_, s. 8.
[90] _Mag. Mar._ i, 31, 1193. εὐτραπελία δ’ ἐστὶ μεσότης βωμολοχίας
καὶ ἀγροικίας. ὅ τε γὰρ βωμολόχος ἐστὶν ὁ πάντα καὶ πᾶν οἰόμενος δεῖν
σκώπτειν, ὅ τε ἄγροικος ὁ μήτε σκώπτειν βουλόμενος, μήτε σκωφθῆναι,
ἀλλ’ ὀργιζόμενος. ὁ δ’ εὐτράπελος ἀνὰ μέσον τούτων, ὁ μήτε πάντας καὶ
παντῶς σκώπτων, μητ’ αὐτὸς ἄγροικος ὤν. ἔσται δ’ ὁ εὐτράπελος διττῶς
πως λεγόμενος. καὶ γὰρ ὁ δυνάμενος σκῶψαι ἐμμελῶς, καὶ ὃς ἂν ὑπομείνῃ
σκωπτόμενος.
[91] _De divinatione per somnum_ ii. (464ᵃ 33) οἱ δὲ μελαγχολικοὶ διὰ τὸ
σφόδρα, ὥσπερ βάλλοντες πόρρωθεν, εὔστοχοί εἰσιν. _Cf._ _Eth. Nic._ vi.
10 (1142ᵇ 2), where εὐστοχία is distinguished from βούλευσις as “swift
and wordless”; ἄνευ τε γὰρ λόγου καὶ ταχύ τι ἡ εὐστοχία. And a little
further on it is said that ἀγχίνοια—“ready wit,” “shrewdness,” is a kind
of εὐστοχία.
[92] _Rhet._ iii. II, 1412ᵃ. εὐστοχία sees analogies, like Archytas, who
says “a διαιτητὴς is like an altar”—for to both the injured flee!
[93] _Eth. Eud._ vii. 5, 1240ᵃ 2.
[94] _Cf._ Ps. cxv. 4-8. Esp. Isaiah xliv. and xlvi.
[95] A recent writer, H. McLachlan (_St. Luke, the Man and his Work_,
Manchester Univ. Press, 1920), has drawn attention to the humorous
gift of the third Evangelist, and entitles one of his chapters “Luke
the Humorist.” See also the present writer’s _St. Luke_ (Westminster
Commentaries, Methuen, 1922, Introduction, pp. xxix. _sq._).
[96] _Cronica Fratris Salimbene de Adam_ (Ed. Holder-Egger, Hanover,
1905-1913), pp. 77 _sqq._ “Florentini ... trufatores maximi sunt.”
[97] _Rhet._ ii. 1389ᵇ 10. οἰ νέοι ... φιλογέλωτες, διὸ καὶ εὐτράπελοι; ἡ
γὰρ εὐτραπελία πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις ἐστίν.
[98] _Purg._ x. 130-3.
[99] Nino Tammassia, _S. Francesco d’ Assisi e la sua Leggenda_, Padova,
Drucker, 1906. (Eng. Tr. Fisher Unwin, 1910).
[100] D. G. Rossetti, _The Early Italian Poets, etc._
[101] _Purg._ xxiii. 115 _sqq._
[102] _Op. cit._ pp. 55-6.
[103] _Conv._ III, viii. 70; Oxf., p. 282; Bemporad, p. 222.
[104] _Portraits of Dante from Giotto to Raffael: a critical study, with
a concise iconography_, by Richard Thayer Holbrook. London: Philip Lee
Warner, 1911.
[105] Holbrook, _l.c._ pp. 68-72.
[106] Holbrook, _op. cit._ p. 102 and illustration opposite p. 98.
[107] _Vita_, § 8. Ne’ costumi domestici e publici mirabilmente fu
ordinato e composto, e in tutti più che un altro cortese e civile.
[108] _Hist._ ix. 136. Per lo suo sapere fu alquanto presuntuoso e schifo
e isdegnoso, e quasi a guisa di filosofo mal grazioso. Non bene sapea
conversare co’ laici.
[109] _Cf._ Toynbee, _Dante Alighieri_, Methuen, 3rd ed., 1904, p. 176
_sqq._
[110] This is quoted from C. Bruni’s excellent _Guida al Casentino_, p.
167. B. does not specify his authorities, but says in a footnote: “Questo
aneddoto è così riferito da varii scrittori danteschi.”
[111] _Dante and His Italy_, pp. 141, 2.
[112] _Inf._ xxii. 118.
[113] _Inf._ xxiii, 4 _sqq._
[114] Sannia not inappropriately describes this passage as “il comico
populare della D.C.” (p. 193).
[115] _Inf._ xxii. 25.
[116] _Inf._ xxii. 41, 57, 60, 72, _cf._ xxi. 55 _sqq._