DANTE'S EARLY DAYS
In the month when Charles of Anjou sailed up the Tiber to Rome, a child
was born at Florence to a citizen named Alighiero, son of Bellincione.
We do not know for certain his _casato_, or family name. Bellincione's
father was another Alighiero, or, as it was originally written,
Aldighiero. His father was Cacciaguida, who had a brother named Eliseo;
from which it has been conjectured that he may have belonged to the
prominent house of the Elisei, which is known to have existed as far
back as the beginning of the eleventh century, since it was not uncommon
for members of a family to bear the founder's name. We know, further,
that the name of Alighiero came into the family with Cacciaguida's wife,
who belonged to some city near the Po, probably Ferrara, where a family
of Aldighieri is known to have existed.[22] In any case, it was
originally no Florentine name, and it may be doubted if it ever was
recognised as the appellation of a family. True, Dante is once or twice
referred to as "Dantes de Alegheriis," but this may be due to the fact
that he was known to have had recently two ancestors of the name. He
himself, if we may trust the evidence of letters ascribed to him, seems
to have written "Dantes Alligherius," while his son calls him Dantes
Aligherii, and himself Petrus Dantis Aligherii, "Peter, son of Dante,
son of Alighiero." In the official Florentine documents, where his name
occurs, it is "Dantes Allegherii" or "Dante d'Alighiero," "Dante the son
of Alighiero," and no more. The form "degli Alighieri," which would
indicate a true family name, we find in no undoubtedly contemporary
document.
In view of this initial uncertainty, the discussion whether the poet was
of "noble" family or not seems a trifle superfluous. His
great-great-grand-father, Cacciaguida, is made to say (_Par._, xv. 140)
that he himself received knighthood from the Emperor Conrad III. (of
Hohenstaufen). This would confer nobility; but it would appear that it
would be possible for later generations to lose that status, and there
are some indications that Dante was sensitive on this point. At any
rate, it is pretty clear that his immediate ancestors were not in any
way distinguished. The very fact that he was born in Florence during a
period when all the leading Guelfs were in exile shows that Alighiero
was not considered by the dominant Ghibelines a person of too great
importance to be allowed to remain undisturbed in the city.
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 amassed 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
passages 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
_Hell_ (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 passage, it tells, if anything, against the
received story.
Another event, sometimes assigned 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 asserts 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 assigned 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
dykes along the coast of Flanders to illustrate 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 illustration,
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
associated 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 passed
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
mass of unwarranted inferences from unverified assertions. 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 passion, 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 noble
living, "the maiden passion 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 illustrations, 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_ "nobility,"
in reference to freewill, _la nobile 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
space if I were to give them here.