DANIELL, JOHN FREDERIC (1700-1845), English chemist and physicist, was
born in London on the 12th of March 1790, and in 1831 became the first
professor of chemistry at the newly founded King's College, London. His
name is best known for his invention of the Daniell cell (_Phil.
Trans._, 1836), still extensively used for telegraphic and other
purposes. He also invented the dew-point hygrometer known by his name
(_Quar. Journ. Sci._, 1820), and a register pyrometer (_Phil. Trans._,
1830); and in 1830 he erected in the hall of the Royal Society a
water-barometer, with which he carried out a large number of
observations _(Phil. Trans._, 1832). A process devised by him for the
manufacture of illuminating gas from turpentine and resin was in use in
New York for a time. His publications include _Meteorological Essays_
(1823), an _Essay on Artificial Climate considered in its Applications
to Horticulture_ (1824), which showed the necessity of a humid
atmosphere in hothouses devoted to tropical plants, and an _Introduction
to the Study of Chemical Philosophy_ (1839). He died suddenly of
apoplexy on the 13th of March 1845, in London, while attending a meeting
of the council of the Royal Society, of which he became a fellow in 1813
and foreign secretary in 1839.
DANIELL, THOMAS (1749-1840), English landscape painter, was born at the
Chertsey inn, kept by his father, in 1749, and apprenticed to an
heraldic painter. Daniell, however, was animated with a love of the
romantic and beautiful in architecture and nature. Up to 1784 he painted
topographical subjects and flower pieces. By this time his two nephews
(see below) had come under his influence, the younger, Samuel, being
apprenticed to Medland the landscape engraver, and the elder, William,
being under his own care. In this year (1784) he embarked for India
accompanied by William, and found at Calcutta ample encouragement. Here
he remained ten years, and on returning to London he published his
largest work, _Oriental Scenery_, in six large volumes, not completed
till 1808. From 1795 till 1828 he continued to exhibit Eastern subjects,
temples, jungle hunts, &c., and at the same time continued the
publication of illustrated works. These are--_Views of Calcutta_;
_Oriental Scenery_, 144 plates; _Views in Egypt_; _Excavations at
Ellora_; _Picturesque Voyage to China_. These were for the most part
executed in aquatint. He was elected an Academician in 1799, fellow of
the Royal Society about the same time, and at different times member of
several minor societies. His nephews both died before him; his Indian
period had made him independent, and he lived a bachelor life in much
respect at Kensington till his death on the 19th of March 1840.
WILLIAM DANIELL (1769-1837), his nephew, was fourteen when he
accompanied his uncle to India. His own publications, engraved in
aquatint, were--_Voyage to India_; _Zoography_; _Animated Nature_;
_Views of London_; _Views of Bootan_, a work prepared from his uncle's
sketches; and a _Voyage Round Great Britain_, which occupied him several
years. The British Institution made him an award of L100 for a "Battle
of Trafalgar," and he was elected R.A. in 1822. He turned to panorama
painting before his death, beginning in 1832 with Madras, the picture
being enlivened by a representation of the Hindu mode of taming wild
elephants.
SAMUEL DANIELL, William's younger brother, was brought up as an
engraver, and first appears as an exhibitor in 1792. A few years later
he went to the Cape and travelled into the interior of Africa, with his
sketching materials in his haversack. The drawings he made there were
published, after his return, in his _African Scenery_. He did not rest
long at home, but left for Ceylon in 1806, where he spent the remaining
years of his life, publishing _The Scenery, Animals and Natives of
Ceylon_.
DANNAT, WILLIAM T. (1853- ), American artist, was born in New York city
in 1853. He was a pupil of the Royal Academy of Munich and of Munkacsy,
and became an accomplished draughtsman and a distinguished figure and
portrait painter. He early attracted attention with sketches and
pictures made in Spain, and a large composition, "The Quartette," now in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was one of the successes of
the Paris Salon of 1884. Dannat settled in Paris, became an officer of
the Legion of Honour, and is represented in the Luxembourg.
DANNECKER, JOHANN HEINRICH VON (1758-1841), German sculptor, was born at
Stuttgart, where his father was employed in the stables of the duke of
Wurttemberg, on the 15th of October 1758. The boy was entered in the
military school at the age of thirteen, but after two years he was
allowed to take his own taste for art. We find him at once associating
with the young sculptors Scheffauer and Le Jeune, the painters Guibal
and Harper, and also with Schiller, and the musician Zumsteeg. His busts
of some of these are good; that of Schiller is well known. In his
eighteenth year he carried off the prize at the Concours with his model
of Milo of Crotona. On this the duke made him sculptor to the palace
(1780), and for some time he was employed on child-angels and caryatides
for the decoration of the reception rooms. In 1783 he left for Paris
with Scheffauer, and placed himself under Pajou. His Mars, a sitting
figure sent home to Stuttgart, marks this period; and we next find him,
still travelling with his friend, at Rome in 1785, where he settled down
to work hard for five years. Goethe and Herder were then in Rome and
became his friends, as well as Canova, who was the hero of the day, and
who had undoubtedly a great authoritative influence on his style. His
marble statues of Ceres and Bacchus were done at this time. These are
now in the Residenz-schloss, at Stuttgart. On his return to Stuttgart,
which he never afterwards quitted except for short trips to Paris,
Vienna and Zurich, the double influence of his admiration for Canova and
his study of the antique is apparent in his works. The first was a girl
lamenting her dead bird, which pretty light motive was much admired.
Afterwards, Sappho, in marble for the Lustschloss, and two
offering-bearers for the Jagdschloss; Hector, now in the museum, not in
marble; the complaint of Ceres, from Schiller's poem; a statue of
Christ, worthy of mention for its nobility, which has been skilfully
engraved by Amsler; Psyche; kneeling water-nymph; Love, a favourite he
had to repeat. These stock subjects with sculptors had freshness of
treatment; and the Ariadne, done a little later, especially had a charm
of novelty which has made it a European favourite in a reduced size. It
was repeated for the banker Von Bethmann in Frankfort, and it now
appears the ornament of the Bethmann Museum. Many of the illustrious men
of the time were modelled by him. The original marble of Schiller is now
at Weimar; after the poet's death it was again modelled in colossal
size. Lavater, Metternich, Countess Stephanie of Baden, General
Benkendorf and others are much prized. Dannecker was director of the
Gallery of Stuttgart, and received many academic and other distinctions.
His death in 1841 was preceded by a period of mental failure.
DANNEWERK, or DANEWERK (Danish, _Dannevirke_ or _Danevirke_, "Danes'
rampart"), the ancient frontier rampart of the Danes against the
Germans, extending 10(1/2) m. from just south of the town of Schleswig
to the marshes of the river Trene near the village of Hollingstedt. The
rampart was begun by Guethoethr (_Godefridus_), king of Vestfold, early
in the 9th century. In 934 it was passed by the German king Henry I.,
after which it was extended by King Harold Bluetooth (940-986), but was
again stormed by the emperor Otto II. in 974. The chronicler Saxo
Grammaticus mentions in his _Gesta Danorum_ the "rampart of Jutland"
(_Jutiae moenia_) as having been once more extended by Valdemar the
Great (1157-1182), which has been cited among the proofs that Schleswig
(_Sonderjylland_) forms an integral part of Jutland (_Manuel hist. de la
question de Slesvig_, 1906). After the union of Schleswig and Holstein
under the Danish crown, the Danevirke fell into decay, but in 1848 it
was hastily strengthened by the Danes, who were, however, unable to hold
it in face of the superiority of the Prussian artillery, and on the 23rd
of April it was stormed. From 1850 onwards it was again repaired and
strengthened at great cost, and was considered impregnable; but in the
war of 1864 the Prussians turned it by crossing the Schlei, and it was
abandoned by the Danes on the 6th of February without a blow. It was
thereupon destroyed by the Prussians; in spite of which, however, a long
line of imposing ruins still remains. The systematic excavation of
these, begun in 1900, has yielded some notable finds, especially of
valuable runic inscriptions (F. de Jessen, _La Question de Slesvig_, pp.
25, 44-50, &c.).
See Lorenzen, _Dannevirke og Omegn_ (2nd ed., Copenhagen, 1864); H.
Handelmann, _Das Dannewerk_ (Kiel, 1885); Philippsen and Sunksen,
_Fuhrer durch das Danewerk_ (Hamburg, 1903).
DANSVILLE, a village of Livingston county, New York, U.S.A., 49 m. S. of
Rochester, on the Canaseraga Creek. Pop. (1890) 3758; (1900) 3633, of
whom 417 were foreign-born; (1905) 3908; (1910) 3938. The village is
served by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the Dansville & Mount
Morris railways. At Dansville is the Jackson Health Resort, a large
sanatorium, with which a nurses' training school is connected. There is
a public library. The village has large nurseries and vineyards, flour
and paper mills, a large printing establishment, a foundry, and a shoe
factory. Dansville, named in honour of Daniel P. Faulkner, was settled
about 1800, and was incorporated in 1845.
DANTE, Dante (or Durante) Alighieri (1265-1321), the greatest of Italian
poets, was born at Florence about the middle of May 1265. He was
descended from an ancient family, but from one which at any rate for
several generations had belonged to the burgher and not to the knightly
class. His biographers have attempted on very slight grounds to deduce
his origin from the Frangipani, one of the oldest senatorial families of
Rome. We can affirm with greater certainty that he was connected with
the Elisei who took part in the building of Florence under Charles the
Great. Dante himself does not, with the exception of a few obscure and
scattered allusions, carry his ancestry beyond the warrior Cacciaguida,
whom he met in the sphere of Mars (_Par._ xv. 87, foll.). Of
Cacciaguida's family nothing is known. The name, as he told Dante
(_Par._ xv. 139, 5), was given him at his baptism; it has a Teutonic
ring. The family may well have sprung from one of the barons who, as
Villani tells us, remained behind Otto I. It has been noted that the
phrase "Tonde venner quivi" (xvi. 44) seems to imply that they were not
Florentines. He further tells his descendant that he was born in the
year 1106 (or, if another reading of xvi, 37, 38 be adopted, in 1091),
and that he married an Aldighieri from the valley of the Po. Here the
German strain appears unmistakably; the name Aldighiero (Aldiger) being
purely Teutonic. He also mentions two brothers, Moronte and Eliseo, and
that he accompanied the emperor Conrad III. upon his crusade into the
Holy Land, where he died (1147) among the infidels. From Eliseo was
probably descended the branch of the Elisei; from Aldighiero, son of
Cacciaguida, the branch of the Alighieri. Bellincione, son of
Aldighiero, was the grandfather of Dante. His father was a second
Aldighiero, a lawyer of some reputation. By his first wife, Lapa di
Chiarissimo Cialuffii, this Aldighiero had a son Francesco; by his
second, Donna Bella, whose family name is not known, Dante and a
daughter. Thus the family of Dante held a most respectable position
among the citizens of his beloved city; but had it been reckoned in the
very first rank they could not have remained in Florence after the
defeat of the Guelphs at Montaperti in 1260. It is clear, however, that
Dante's mother at least did so remain, for Dante was born in Florence in
1265. The heads of the Guelph party did not return till 1267.
Dante was born under the sign of the twins, "the glorious stars pregnant
with virtue, to whom he owes his genius such as it is." Astrologers
considered this constellation as favourable to literature and science,
and Brunetto Latini, the philosopher and diplomatist, his instructor,
tells him in the _Inferno_ (xv. 25, foll.) that, if he follows its
guidance, he cannot fail to reach the harbour of fame. Boccaccio relates
that before his birth his mother dreamed that she lay under a very lofty
laurel, growing in a green meadow, by a very clear fountain, when she
felt the pangs of childbirth,--that her child, feeding on the berries
which fell from the laurel, and on the waters of the fountain, in a very
short time became a shepherd, and attempted to reach the leaves of the
laurel, the fruit of which had nurtured him,--that, trying to obtain
them he fell, and rose up, no longer a man, but in the guise of a
peacock. We know little of Dante's boyhood except that he was a hard
student and was profoundly influenced by Brunetto Latini. Boccaccio
tells us that he became very familiar with Virgil, Horace, Ovid and
Statius, and all other famous poets. From the age of eighteen he, like
most cultivated young men of that age, wrote poetry assiduously, in the
philosophical amatory style of which his friend, older by many years
than himself, Guido Cavalcanti, was a great exponent, and of which Dante
regarded Guido Guinicelli of Bologna as the master (_Purg._ xxvi. 97,
8). Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, writing a hundred years or more after his
death, says that "by study of philosophy, of theology, astrology,
arithmetic and geometry, by reading of history, by the turning over many
curious books, watching and sweating in his studies, he acquired the
science which he was to adorn and explain in his verses." Of Brunetto
Latini Dante himself speaks with the most loving gratitude and
affection, though he does not hesitate to brand his vices with infamy.
Under such guidance Dante became master of all the science of his age at
a time when it was not impossible to know all that could be known. He
had some knowledge of drawing; at any rate he tells us that on the
anniversary of the death of Beatrice he drew an angel on a tablet. He
was an intimate friend of Giotto, who has immortalized his youthful
lineaments in the chapel of the Bargello, and who is recorded to have
drawn from his friend's inspiration the allegories of Virtue and Vice
which fringe the frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua. Nor was he
less sensible to the delights of music. Milton had not a keener ear for
the loud uplifted angel trumpets and the immortal harps of golden wires
of the cherubim and seraphim; and the English poet was proud to compare
his own friendship with Henry Lawes with that between Dante and Casella,
"met in the milder shades of purgatory." Of his companions the most
intimate and sympathetic were the lawyer-poet Cino of Pistoia, Lapo
Gianni, Guido Cavalcanti and others, similarly gifted and dowered with
like tastes, who moved in the lively and acute society of Florence, and
felt with him the first warm flush of the new spirit which was soon to
pass over Europe. He has written no sweeter or more melodious lines than
those in which he expresses the wish that he, with Guido and Lapo, might
be wafted by enchantment over the sea wheresoever they might list,
shielded from tempest and foul weather, in such contentment that they
should wish to live always in one mind, and that the good enchanter
should bring Monna Vanna and Monna Bice and that other lady into their
barque, where they should for ever discourse of love and be for ever
happy. It is a wonderful thing (says Leonardo Bruni) that, though he
studied without intermission, it would not have appeared to anyone that
he studied, from his joyous mien and youthful conversation. Like Milton
he was trained in the strictest academical education which the age
afforded; but Dante lived under a warmer sun and brighter skies, and
found in the rich variety and gaiety of his early life a defence against
the withering misfortunes of his later years. Milton felt too early the
chill breath of Puritanism, and the serious musing on the experience of
life, which saddened the verse of both poets, deepened in his case
rather into grave and desponding melancholy, than into the fierce scorn
and invective which disillusion wrung from Dante.
Political life.
We must now consider the political circumstances in which lay the
activity of Dante's manhood. From 1115, the year of the death of Matilda
countess of Tuscany, to 1215, Florence enjoyed a nearly uninterrupted
peace. Attached to the Guelph party, it remained undivided against
itself. But in 1215 a private feud between the families of Buondelmonte
and Uberti introduced into the city the horrors of civil war. Villani
(lib. v. cap. 38) relates how Buondelmonte de' Buondelmonti, a noble
youth of Florence, being engaged to marry a lady of the house of Amidei,
allied himself instead to a Donati, and how Buondelmonte was attacked
and killed by the Amidei and Uberti at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio,
close by the pilaster which bears the image of Mars. "The death of
Messer Buondelmonte was the occasion and beginning of the accursed
parties of Guelphs and Ghibellines in Florence." Of the seventy-two
families then in Florence thirty-nine became Guelph under the leadership
of the Buondelmonte and the rest Ghibelline under the Uberti. The strife
of parties was for a while allayed by the war against Pisa in 1222, and
the constant struggles against Siena; but in 1248 Frederick II. sent
into the city his natural son Frederick "of Antioch," with 1600 German
knights. The Guelphs were driven away from the town, and took refuge,
part in Montevarchi, part in Capraia. The Ghibellines, masters of
Florence, behaved with great severity, and destroyed the towers and
palaces of the Guelph nobles. At last the people became impatient. They
rose in rebellion, reduced the powers of the podesta, elected a captain
of the people to manage the internal affairs of the city, with a council
of twelve, established a more democratic constitution, and, encouraged
by the death of Frederick II. in December 1250, recalled the exiled
Guelphs. Manfred, the bastard son of Frederick, pursued the policy of
his father. He stimulated the Ghibelline Uberti to rebel against their
position of subjection. A rising of the vanquished party was put down by
the people, in July 1258 the Ghibellines were expelled from the town,
and the towers of the Uberti razed to the ground. The exiles betook
themselves to the friendly city of Siena. Manfred sent them a
reinforcement of German horse, under his kinsman Count Giordano Lancia.
The Florentines, after vainly demanding their surrender, despatched an
army against them. On the 4th of September 1260 was fought the great
battle of Montaperti, which dyed the Arbia red, and in which the Guelphs
were entirely defeated. The hand which held the banner of the republic
was sundered by the sword of a traitor (_Inf._ xxxii. 106). For the
first time in the history of Florence the Carroccio was taken. Florence
lay at the mercy of her enemies. A parliament was held at Empoli, in
which the deputies of Siena, Pisa, Arezzo and other Tuscan towns
consulted on the best means of securing their new war power. They voted
that the accursed Guelph city should be blotted out. But Farinata degli
Uberti stood up in their midst, bold and defiant as when he stood erect
among the sepulchres of hell, and said that if, from the whole number of
the Florentines, he alone should remain, he would not suffer, whilst he
could wield a sword, that his country should be destroyed, and that, if
it were necessary to die a thousand times for her, a thousand times
would he be ready to encounter death. Help came to the Guelphs from an
unexpected quarter. Clement IV., elected pope in 1265, offered the crown
of Apulia and Sicily to Charles of Anjou. The French prince, passing
rapidly through Lombardy, Romagna and the Marches, reached Rome by way
of Spoleto, was crowned on the 6th of January 1266, and on the 23rd of
February defeated and killed Manfred at Benevento. In such a storm of
conflict did Dante first see the light. In 1267 the Guelphs were
recalled, but instead of settling down in peace with their opponents
they summoned Charles of Anjou to vengeance, and the Ghibellines were
driven out. The meteor passage of Conradin gave hope to the imperial
party, which was quenched when the head of the fair-haired boy fell on
the scaffold at Naples. Pope after pope tried in vain to make peace.
Gregory X. placed the rebellious city under an interdict; in 1278
Cardinal Latini by order of Nicholas III. effected a truce, which lasted
for four years. The city was to be governed by a committee of fourteen
_buonomini_, on which the Guelphs were to have a small majority. In 1282
the constitution of Florence received the final form which it retained
till the collapse of freedom. From the three arti _maggiori_ were chosen
six priors, in whose hands was placed the government of the republic.
Before the end of the century, seven greater arts were recognized,
including the _speziali_,--druggists and dealers in all manner of
oriental goods, and in books--among whom Dante afterwards enrolled
himself. They remained in office for two months, and during that time
lived and shared a common table in the public palace. We shall see what
influence this office had upon the fate of Dante. The success of the
"Sicilian Vespers" (March 1282), the death of Charles of Anjou (January
1285), and of Martin IV. in the following March, roused again the
courage of the Ghibellines. They entered Arezzo, where the Ghibellines
at present had the upper hand, and threatened to drive out the Guelphs
from Tuscany. Skirmishes and raids, of which Villani and Bruni have left
accounts, went on through the winter of 1288-1289, forming a prelude to
the great battle of Campaldino in the following summer. Then it was
that Dante saw "horsemen moving camp and commencing the assault, and
holding muster, and the march of foragers, the shock of tournaments, and
race of jousts, now with trumpets and now with bells, with drums and
castle signals, with native things and foreign" (_Inf._ xxii. 1, foll.).
On the 11th of June 1289, at Campaldino near Poppi, in the Casentino,
the Ghibellines were utterly defeated. They never again recovered their
hold on Florence, but the violence of faction survived under other
names. In a letter quoted, though not at first hand, by Leonardo Bruni,
which is not now extant, Dante is said to mention that he himself fought
with distinction at Campaldino. He was present shortly afterwards at the
battle of Caprona (_Inf._ xxi. 95, foll.), and returned in September
1289 to his studies and his love. His peace was of short duration. On
the 9th of June 1290 died Beatrice, whose mortal love had guided him for
thirteen years, and whose immortal spirit purified his later life, and
revealed to him the mysteries of Paradise.
Dante had first met Beatrice Portinari at the house of her father Folco
on May-day 1274. In his own words, "already nine times after my birth
the heaven of light had returned as it were to the same point, when
there appeared to my eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was by many
called Beatrice who knew not what to call her. She had already been so
long in this life that already in its time the starry heaven had moved
towards the east the twelfth part of a degree, so that she appeared to
me about the beginning of her ninth year, and I saw her about the end of
my ninth year. Her dress on that day was of a most noble colour, a
subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as best
suited with her tender age. At that moment I saw most truly that the
spirit of life which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the
heart began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body
shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words, 'Ecce deus
fortior me qui veniens dominabitur mihi.'" In the _Vita Nuova_ is
written the story of his passion from its commencement to within a year
after the lady's death (June 9th, 1290). He saw Beatrice only once or
twice, and she probably knew little of him. She married Simone de'
Bardi. But the worship of her lover was stronger for the remoteness of
its subject. The last chapter of the Vita Nuova relates how, after the
lapse of a year, "it was given me to behold a wonderful vision, wherein
I saw things which determined me to say nothing further of this blessed
one until such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning her.
And to this end I labour all I can, as she in truth knoweth. Therefore
if it be His pleasure through whom is the life of all things that my
life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I shall yet write
concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. After the
which may it seem good unto Him who is the master of grace that my
spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady, to wit, of that
blessed Beatrice who now gloriously gazes on the countenance of Him qui
est per omnia saecula benedictus." In the _Convito_ he resumes the story
of his life. "When I had lost the first delight of my soul (that is,
Beatrice) I remained so pierced with sadness that no comforts availed me
anything, yet after some time my mind, desirous of health, sought to
return to the method by which other disconsolate ones had found
consolation, and I set myself to read that little-known book of Boetius
in which he consoled himself when a prisoner and an exile. And hearing
that Tully had written another work, in which, treating of friendship,
he had given words of consolation to Laelius, I set myself to read that
also." He so far recovered from the shock of his loss that in 1292 he
married Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, a connexion of the celebrated
Corso Donati, afterwards Dante's bitter foe. It is possible that she is
the lady mentioned in the _Vita Nuova_ as sitting full of pity at her
window and comforting Dante for his sorrow. By this wife he had two sons
and two daughters, and although he never mentions her in the _Divina
Commedia_, and although she did not accompany him into exile, there is
no reason to suppose that she was other than a good wife, or that the
union was otherwise than happy. Certain it is that he spares the memory
of Corso in his great poem, and speaks kindly of his kinsmen Piccarda
and Forese.
In 1293 Giano della Bella, a man of old family who had thrown in his lot
with the people, induced the commonwealth to adopt the so-called
"Ordinances of Justice," a severely democratic constitution, by which
among other things it was enacted that no man of noble family, even
though engaged in trade, could hold office as prior. Two years later
Giano was banished, but the ordinances remained in force, though the
_grandi_ recovered much of their power.
Dante now began to take an active part in politics. He was inscribed in
the _arte_ of the _Medici_ and _Speziali_, which made him eligible as
one of the six _priori_ to whom the government of the city was entrusted
in 1282. Documents still existing in the archives of Florence show that
he took part in the deliberations of the several councils of the city in
1295, 1296, 1300 and 1301. The notice in the last year is of some
importance. The pope had demanded a contingent of 100 Florentine knights
to serve against his enemies, the Colonna family. On the 19th of June we
read in the contemporary report of the debate on this question in the
Council of a Hundred: "_Dantes Alagherius consuluit quod de servitio
faciendo Domino Papae nihil fieret_." Other instances of his invariable
opposition to Boniface occur. Filelfo says that he served on fourteen
embassies, a statement not only unsupported by evidence, but impossible
in itself. Filelfo does not mention the only embassy in which we know
for certain that Dante was engaged, that to the town of San Gemignano in
May 1300. From the 15th of June to the 15th of August 1300 he held the
office of prior, which was the source of all the miseries of his life.
The spirit of faction had again broken out in Florence. The two rival
families were the Cerchi and the Donati,--the first of great wealth but
recent origin, the last of ancient ancestry but poor. A quarrel had
arisen in Pistoia between the two branches of the Cancellieri,--the
Bianchi and Neri, the Whites and the Blacks. The quarrel spread to
Florence, the Donati took the side of the Blacks, the Cerchi of the
Whites. Pope Boniface was asked to mediate, and sent Cardinal Matteo
d'Acquasparta to maintain peace. He arrived just as Dante entered upon
his office as prior. The cardinal effected nothing, but Dante and his
colleagues banished the heads of the rival parties in different
directions to a distance from the capital. The Blacks were sent to Citta
della Pieve in the Tuscan mountains; the Whites, among whom was Dante's
dearest friend Guido Cavalcanti, to Serrezzano in the unhealthy Maremma.
After the expiration of Dante's office both parties returned, Guido
Cavalcanti so ill with fever that he shortly afterwards died. At a
meeting held in the church of the Holy Trinity the Whites were denounced
as Ghibellines, enemies of the pope. The Blacks sought for vengeance.
Their leader, Corso Donati, hastened to Rome, and persuaded Boniface
VIII. to send for Charles of Valois, brother of the French king, Philip
the Fair, to act as "peacemaker." The priors sent at the end of
September four ambassadors to the pope, one of whom, according to the
chronicler Dino, was Dante. There are, however, improbabilities in the
story, and the passage quoted in support of it bears marks of later
interpolation. He never again saw the towers of his native city. Charles
of Valois, after visiting the pope at Anagni, retraced his steps to
Florence, entering the city on All Saints' Day and taking up his abode
in the Oltr' Arno. Corso Donati, who had been banished a second time,
returned in force and summoned the Blacks to arms. The prisons were
broken open, the podesta driven from the town, the Cerchi confined
within their houses, a third of the city was destroyed with fire and
sword. By the help of Charles the Blacks were victorious. They appointed
Cante de' Gabrielli of Gubbio as podesta, a man devoted to their
interests. More than 600 Whites were condemned to exile and cast as
beggars upon the world. On the 27th of January 1302, Dante, with four
others of the White party, was charged before the podesta, Cante de'
Gabrielli, with _baratteria_, or corrupt jobbery and peculation when in
office, and, not appearing, condemned to pay a fine of 5000 lire of
small florins. If the money was not paid within three days their
property was to be destroyed and laid waste; if they did pay the fine
they were to be exiled for two years from Tuscany; in any case they were
never again to hold office in the republic. The charge in Dante's case
was obviously preposterous, though ingeniously devised; for he was known
to be at the time in somewhat straitened circumstances, and had recently
been in control of certain public works. But of all sins, that of
"barratry" was one of the most hateful to him. No doubt the papal finger
may be traced in the affair. On the 10th of March Dante and fourteen
others were condemned to be burned alive if they should come into the
power of the republic. Similar sentences were passed in September 1311
and October 1315. The sentence was not formally reversed till 1494,
under the government of the Medici.
Leonardo Bruni, who accepts the story of the embassy to Rome, states
that Dante received the news of his banishment in that city, and at once
joined the other exiles at Siena. How he escaped arrest in the papal
states is not explained. The exiles met first at Gargonza, a castle
between Siena and Arezzo, and then at Arezzo itself. They joined
themselves to the Ghibellines, to which party the podesta Uguccione
della Faggiuola belonged. The Ghibellines, however, were divided amongst
themselves, and the more strict Ghibellines were not disposed to favour
the cause of the White Guelphs. On the 8th of June 1302, however, a
meeting was held at San Godenzo, a place in the Florentine territory,
Dante's presence at which is proved by documentary evidence, and an
alliance was there made with the powerful Ghibelline clan of the
Ubaldini. The exiles remained at Arezzo till the summer of 1304. In
September 1303 the fleur-de-lis had entered Anagni, and Christ had a
second time been made prisoner in the person of his vicar. At the
instigation of Philip the Fair, William of Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna
had entered the papal palace at Anagni, and had insulted and, it is
said, even beaten the aged pontiff under his own roof. Boniface did not
survive the insult long, but died in the following month. He was
succeeded by Benedict XI., and in March the cardinal da Prato came to
Florence, sent by the new pope to make peace. The people received him
with enthusiasm; ambassadors came to him from the Whites; and he did his
best to reconcile the two parties. But the Blacks resisted all his
efforts. He shook the dust from off his feet, and departed, leaving the
city under an interdict. Foiled by the calumnies and machinations of the
one party, the cardinal gave his countenance to the other. It happened
that Corso Donati and the heads of the Black party were absent at
Pistoia. Da Prato advised the Whites to attack Florence, deprived of its
heads and impaired by a recent fire. An army was collected of 16,000
foot and 9000 horse. Communications were opened with the Ghibellines of
Bologna and Romagna, and a futile attempt was made to enter Florence
from Lastra, the failure of which further disorganized the party. Dante
had, however, already separated from the "ill-conditioned and foolish
company" of common party-politicians, who rejected his counsels of
wisdom, and had learnt that he must henceforth form a party by himself.
In 1303 he had left Arezzo and gone to Forli in Romagna, of which city
Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi was lord. To him, according to Flavius Blondus
the historian (d. before 1484), a native of the place, Dante acted for a
time as secretary.
Dante's Ghibellinism.
From Forli Dante probably went to Bartolommeo della Scala, lord of
Verona, where the country of the great Lombard gave him his first refuge
and his first hospitable reception. Can Grande, to whom he afterwards
dedicated the _Paradiso_, was then a boy. Bartolommeo died in 1304, and
it is possible that Dante may have remained in Verona till his death. We
must consider, if we would understand the real nature of Dante's
Ghibellinism, that he had been born and bred a Guelph; but he saw that
the conditions of the time were altered, and that other dangers menaced
the welfare of his country. There was no fear now that Florence, Siena,
Pisa, Arezzo should be razed to the ground in order that the castle of
the lord might overlook the humble cottages of his contented subjects;
but there was danger lest Italy should be torn in sunder by its own
jealousies and passions, and lest the fair domain bounded by the sea and
the Alps should never properly assert the force of its individuality,
and should present a contemptible contrast to a united France and a
confederated Germany. Sick with petty quarrels and dissensions, Dante
strained his eyes towards the hills for the appearance of a universal
monarch, raised above the jars of faction and the spur of ambition,
under whom each country, each city, each man, might, under the
institutions best suited to it, lead the life and do the work for which
it was best fitted. United in spiritual harmony with the vicar of
Christ, he should show for the first time to the world an example of a
government where the strongest force and the highest wisdom were
interpenetrated by all that God had given to the world of piety and
justice. In this sense and in no other was Dante a Ghibelline. The
vision was never realized--the hope was never fulfilled. Not till 500
years later did Italy become united and the "greyhound of deliverance"
chase from city to city the wolf of cupidity. But is it possible to say
that the dream did not work its own realization, or to deny that the
high ideal of the poet, after inspiring a few minds as lofty as his own,
has become embodied in the constitution of a state which acknowledges no
stronger bond of union than a common worship of the exile's indignant
and impassioned verse?
Wanderings.
It is very difficult to determine with exactness the order and the place
of Dante's wanderings. Many cities and castles in Italy have claimed the
honour of giving him shelter, or of being for a time the home of his
inspired muse. He certainly spent some time with Count Guido Salvatico
in the Casentino near the sources of the Arno, probably in the castle of
Porciano, and with Uguccione in the castle of Faggiuola in the mountains
of Urbino. After this he is said to have visited the university of
Bologna; and in August 1306 we find him at Padua. Cardinal Napoleon
Orsini, the legate of the French pope Clement V., had put Bologna under
a ban, dissolved the university and driven the professors to the
northern city. In May or June 1307 the same cardinal collected the
Whites at Arezzo and tried to induce the Florentines to recall them. The
name of Dante is found attached to a document signed by the Whites in
the church of St Gaudenzio in the Mugello. This enterprise came to
nothing. Dante retired to the castle of Moroello Malespina in the
Lunigiana, where the marble ridges of the mountains of Carrara descend
in precipitous slopes to the Gulf of Spezzia. From this time till the
arrival of the emperor Henry VII. in Italy, October 1310, all is
uncertain. His old enemy Corso Donati had at last allied himself with
Uguccione della Faggiuola, the leader of the Ghibellines. Dante thought
it possible that this might lead to his return. But in 1308 Corso was
declared a traitor, attacked in his house, put to flight and killed.
Dante lost his last hope. He left Tuscany, and went to Can Grande della
Scala at Verona. From this place it is thought that he visited the
university of Paris (1309), studied in the rue du Fouarre and went on
into the Low Countries. That he ever crossed the Channel or went to
Oxford, or himself saw where the heart of Henry, son of Richard, earl of
Cornwall, murdered by his cousin Guy of Montfort in 1271, was "still
venerated on the Thames," may safely be disbelieved. The only evidence
for it is in the _Commentary_ of John of Serravalle, bishop of Fermo,
who lived a century later, had no special opportunity of knowing, and
was writing for the benefit of two English bishops. The election in 1308
of Henry of Luxemburg as emperor stirred again his hopes of a deliverer.
At the end of 1310, in a letter to the princes and people of Italy, he
proclaimed the coming of the saviour; at Milan he did personal homage to
his sovereign. The Florentines made every preparation to resist the
emperor. Dante wrote from the Casentino a letter dated the 31st of March
1311, in which he rebuked them for their stubbornness and obstinacy.
Henry still lingered in Lombardy at the siege of Cremona, when Dante, on
the 16th of April 1311, in a celebrated epistle, upbraided his delay,
argued that the crown of Italy was to be won on the Arno rather than on
the Po, and urged the tarrying emperor to hew the rebellious Florentines
like Agag in pieces before the Lord. Henry was as deaf to this
exhortation as the Florentines themselves. After reducing Lombardy he
passed from Genoa to Pisa, and on the 29th of June 1312 was crowned by
some cardinals in the church of St John Lateran at Rome; the Vatican
being in the hands of his adversary King Robert of Naples. Then at
length he moved towards Tuscany by way of Umbria. Leaving Cortona and
Arezzo, he reached Florence on the 19th of September. He did not dare to
attack it, but returned in November to Pisa. In the summer of the
following year he prepared to invade the kingdom of Naples; but in the
neighbourhood of Siena he caught a fever and died at the monastery of
Buonconvento, on the 24th of August 1313. He lies in the Campo Santo of
Pisa; and the hopes of Dante and his party were buried in his grave.
Old age and death.
After the death of the emperor Henry (Bruni tells us) Dante passed the
rest of his life as an exile, sojourning in various places throughout
Lombardy, Tuscany and the Romagna, under the protection of various
lords, until at length he retired to Ravenna, where he ended his life.
Very little can be added to this meagre story. There is reason for
supposing that he stayed at Gubbio with Bosone dei Rafaelli, and
tradition assigns him a cell in the monastery of Sta Croce di Fonte
Avellana in the same district, situated on the slopes of Catria, one of
the highest peaks of the Apennines in that region. After the death of
the French pope, Clement V., he addressed a letter, dated the 14th of
July 1314, to the cardinals in conclave, urging them to elect an Italian
pope. About this time he came to Lucca, then lately conquered by his
friend Uguccione. Here he completed the last cantos of the _Purgatory_,
which he dedicated to Uguccione, and here he must have become acquainted
with Gentucca, whose name had been whispered to him by her countryman on
the slopes of the Mountain of Purification (_Purg._ xxiv. 37). That the
intimacy between the "world-worn" poet and the young married lady (who
is thought to be identifiable with Gentucca Morla, wife of one
Cosciorino Fondora) was other than blameless, is quite incredible. In
August 1315 was fought the battle of Monte Catini, a day of humiliation
and mourning for the Guelphs. Uguccione made but little use of his
victory; and the Florentines marked their vengeance on his adviser by
condemning Dante yet once again to death if he ever should come into
their power. In the beginning of the following year Uguccione lost both
his cities of Pisa and Lucca. At this time Dante was offered an
opportunity of returning to Florence. The conditions given to the exiles
were that they should pay a fine and walk in the dress of humiliation to
the church of St John, and there do penance for their offences. Dante
refused to tolerate this shame; and the letter is still extant in which
he declines to enter Florence except with honour, secure that the means
of life will not fail him, and that in any corner of the world he will
be able to gaze at the sun and the stars, and meditate on the sweetest
truths of philosophy. He preferred to take refuge with his most
illustrious protector Can Grande della Scala of Verona, then a young man
of twenty-five, rich, liberal and the favoured head of the Ghibelline
party. His name has been immortalized by an eloquent panegyric in the
seventeenth canto of the _Paradiso_. Whilst on a visit at the court of
Verona he maintained, on the 20th of January 1320, the philosophical
thesis _De aqua et terra_, on the levels of land and water, which is
included in his minor works. The last three years of his life were spent
at Ravenna, under the protection of Guido da Polenta. In his service
Dante undertook an embassy to the Venetians. He failed in the object of
his mission, and, returning disheartened and broken in spirit through
the unhealthy lagoons, caught a fever and died in Ravenna on the 14th of
September 1321. His bones still repose there. His doom of exile has been
reversed by the union of Italy, which has made the city of his birth and
the various cities of his wanderings component members of a common
country. His son Piero, who wrote a commentary on the _Divina Commedia_,
settled as a lawyer in Verona, and died in 1364. His daughter Beatrice
lived as a nun in Ravenna, dying at some time between 1350 (when
Boccaccio brought her a present of ten gold crowns from a Florentine
gild) and 1370. His direct line became extinct in 1509.
Divina Commedia.
_Dante's Works._--Of Dante's works, that by which he is known to all the
educated world, and in virtue of which he holds his place as one of the
half-dozen greatest writers of all time, is of course the _Commedia_.
(The epithet _divina_, it may be noted, was not given to the poem by its
author, nor does it appear on a title-page until 1555, in the edition
of Ludovico Dolce, printed by Giolito; though it is applied to the poet
himself as early as 1512.) The poem is absolutely unique in literature;
it may safely be said that at no other epoch of the world's history
could such a work have been produced. Dante was steeped in all the
learning, which in its way was considerable, of his time; he had read
the _Summa Theologica_ of Aquinas, the _Tresor_ of his master Brunetto,
and other encyclopaedic works available in that age; he was familiar
with all that was then known of the Latin classical and post-classical
authors. Further, he was a deep and original political thinker, who had
himself borne a prominent part in practical politics. He was born into a
generation in which almost every man of education habitually wrote
verse, as indeed their predecessors had been doing for the last fifty
years. Vernacular poetry had come late into Italy, and had hitherto,
save for a few didactic or devotional treatises hitched into rough
rhyme, been exclusively lyric in form. Amatory at first, later, chiefly
in the hands of Guittone of Arezzo and Guido Cavalcanti, taking an
ethical and metaphysical tone, it had never fully shaken off the
Provencal influence under which it had started, and of which Dante
himself shows considerable traces.
The age also was unique, though the two great events which made the 15th
century a turning-point in the world's history--the invention of
printing and the discovery of the new world (to which might perhaps be
added the intrusion of Islam into Europe)--were still far in the future.
But the age was essentially one of great men; of free thought and free
speech; of brilliant and daring action, whether for good or evil. It is
easy to understand how Dante's bitterest scorn is reserved for those
"sorry souls who lived without infamy and without renown, displeasing to
God and to His enemies."
The time was thus propitious for the production of a great imaginative
work, and the man was ready who should produce it. It called for a
prophet, and the prophet said, "Here am I." "Dante," says an acute
writer, "is not, as Homer is, the father of poetry springing in the
freshness and simplicity of childhood out of the arms of mother earth;
he is rather, like Noah, the father of a second poetical world, to whom
he pours forth his prophetic song fraught with the wisdom and the
experience of the old world." Thus the _Commedia_, though often classed
for want of a better description among epic poems, is totally different
in method and construction from all other poems of that kind. Its "hero"
is the narrator himself; the incidents do not modify the course of the
story; the place of episodes is taken by theological or metaphysical
disquisitions; the world through which the poet takes his readers is
peopled, not with characters of heroic story, but with men and women
known personally or by repute to him and those for whom he wrote. Its
aim is not to delight, but to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort; to form
men's characters by teaching them what courses of life will meet with
reward, what with penalty, hereafter; "to put into verse," as the poet
says, "things difficult to think." For such new matter a new vehicle was
needed. We have Bembo's authority for believing that the _terza rima_,
surpassed, if at all, only by the ancient hexameter, as a measure
equally adaptable to sustained narrative, to debate, to fierce
invective, to clear-cut picture and to trenchant epigram, was first
employed by Dante.
The action of the _Commedia_ opens in the early morning of the Thursday
before Easter, in the year 1300. The poet finds himself lost in a
forest, escaping from which he has his way barred by a wolf, a lion and
a leopard. All this, like the rest of the poem, is highly symbolical.
This branch of the subject is too vast to be entered on at any length
here; but so far as this passage is concerned it may be said that it
seems to indicate that at this period of his life, about the age of
thirty-five, Dante went through some experience akin to what is now
called "conversion." Having led up till then the ordinary life of a
cultivated Florentine of good family; taking his part in public affairs,
military and civil, as an hereditary member of the predominant Guelph
party; dallying in prose which with all its beauty and passion is full
of the conceits familiar to the 13th century, and in verse which save
for the excellence of its execution differs in no way from that of his
predecessors, with the memory of his lost love; studying more
seriously, perhaps, than most of his associates; possibly travelling a
little,--gradually or suddenly he became convinced that all was not well
with him, and that not by leading, however blamelessly, the "active"
life could he save his soul. The strong vein of mysticism, found in so
many of the deepest thinkers of that age, and conspicuous in Dante's
mind, no doubt played its part. His efforts to free himself from the
"forest" of worldly cares were impeded by the temptations of the
world--cupidity (including ambition), the pride of life and the lusts of
the flesh, symbolized by the three beasts. But a helper is at hand.
Virgil appears and explains that he has a commission from three ladies
on high to guide him. The ladies are the Blessed Virgin, St Lucy (whom
for some reason never yet explained Dante seems to have regarded as in a
special sense his protector) and Beatrice. In Virgil we are apparently
intended to see the symbol of what Dante calls philosophy, what we
should rather call natural religion; Beatrice standing for theology, or
rather revealed religion. Under Virgil's escort Dante is led through the
two lower realms of the next world, Hell and Purgatory; meeting on the
way with many persons illustrious or notorious in recent or remoter
times, as well as many well enough known then in Tuscany and the
neighbouring states; but who, without the immortality, often unenviable,
that the poet has conferred on them, would long ago have been forgotten.
Popes, kings, emperors, poets and warriors, Florentine citizens of all
degrees, are there found; some doomed to hopeless punishment, others
expiating their offences in milder torments, and looking forward to
deliverance in due time. It is remarkable to notice how rarely, if ever,
Dante allows political sympathy or antagonism to influence him in his
distribution of judgment. Hell is conceived as a vast conical hollow,
reaching to the centre of the earth. It has three great divisions,
corresponding to Aristotle's three classes of vices, incontinence,
brutishness and malice. The first are outside the walls of the city of
Dis; the second, among whom are included unbelievers, tyrants, suicides,
unnatural offenders, usurers, are within; the first apparently on the
same level as those without, the rest separated from them by a steep
descent of broken rocks. (It should be said that many Dante scholars
hold that Aristotle's "brutishness" has no place in Dante's scheme; but
the symmetry of the arrangement, the special reference made to that
division, and certain expressions used elsewhere by Dante, seem to make
it probable that he would here, as in most other cases, have followed
his master in philosophy.) The sinners by malice, which includes all
forms of fraud or treachery, are divided from the last by a yet more
formidable barrier. They lie at the bottom of a pit, the depth of which
is not stated, with vertical sides, and accessible only by supernatural
means; a monster named Geryon bearing the poets down on his back. The
torments here are of a more terrible, often of a loathsome character.
Ignominy is added to pain, and the nature of Dante's demeanour towards
the sinners changes from pity to hatred. At the very bottom of the pit
is Lucifer, immovably fixed in ice; climbing down his limbs they reach
the centre of the earth, whence a cranny conducts them back to the
surface, at the foot of the purgatorial mountain, which they reach as
Easter Day is dawning. Before the actual Purgatory is attained they have
to climb for the latter half of the day and rest at night. The occupants
of this outer region are those who have delayed repentance till death
was upon them. They include many of the most famous men of the last
thirty years. In the morning the gate is opened, and Purgatory proper is
entered. This is divided into seven terraces, corresponding to the seven
deadly sins, which encircle the mountain and have to be reached by a
series of steep climbs, compared by Dante in one instance to the path
from Florence to Samminiato. The penalties are not degrading, but rather
tests of patience or endurance; and in several cases Dante has to bear a
share in them as he passes. On the summit is the Earthly Paradise. Here
Beatrice appears, in a mystical pageant; Virgil departs, leaving Dante
in her charge. By her he is led through the various spheres of which,
according to both the astronomy and the theology of the time, Heaven is
composed, to the supreme Heaven, or Empyrean, the seat of the Godhead.
For one moment there is granted him the intuitive vision of the Deity,
and the comprehension of all mysteries, which is the ultimate goal of
mystical theology; his will is wholly blended with that of God, and the
poem ends.
Convito.
The _Convito_, or _Banquet_, also called _Convivio_ (Bembo uses the
first form, Trissino the other), is the work of Dante's manhood, as the
_Vita Nuova_ is the work of his youth. It consists, in the form in which
it has come down to us, of an introduction and three treatises, each
forming an elaborate commentary in a long canzone. It was intended, if
completed, to have comprised commentaries on eleven more canzoni, making
fourteen in all, and in this shape would have formed a _tesoro_ or
handbook of universal knowledge, such as Brunetto Latini and others have
left to us. It is perhaps the least well known of Dante's Italian works,
but crabbed and unattractive as it is in many parts, it is well worth
reading, and contains many passages of great beauty and elevation.
Indeed a knowledge of it is quite indispensable to the full
understanding of the _Divina Commedia_ and the _De Monarchia_. The time
of its composition is uncertain. As it stands it has very much the look
of being the contents of note-books partially arranged. Dante mentions
princes as living who died in 1309; he does not mention Henry VII. as
emperor, who succeeded in 1310. There are some passages which seem to
have been inserted at a later date. The canzoni upon which the
commentary is written were probably composed between 1292 and 1300, when
he was seeking in philosophy consolation for the loss of Beatrice. The
_Convito_ was first printed in Florence by Buonaccorsi in 1490. It has
never been adequately edited.
Vita Nuova.
The _Vita Nuova_ (_Young Life_ or _New Life_, for both significations
seem to be intended) contains the history of his love for Beatrice. He
describes how he met Beatrice as a child, himself a child, how he often
sought her glance, how she once greeted him in the street, how he
feigned a false love to hide his true love, how he fell ill and saw in a
dream the death and transfiguration of his beloved, how she died, and
how his health failed from sorrow, how the tender compassion of another
lady nearly won his heart from its first affection, how Beatrice
appeared to him in a vision and reclaimed his heart, and how at last he
saw a vision which induced him to devote himself to study that he might
be more fit to glorify her who gazes on the face of God for ever. This
simple story is interspersed with sonnets, ballads and canzoni, arranged
with a remarkable symmetry, to which Professor Charles Eliot Norton was
the first to draw attention, chiefly written at the time to emphasize
some mood of his changing passion. After each of these, in nearly every
case, follows an explanation in prose, which is intended to make the
thought and argument intelligible to those to whom the language of
poetry was not familiar. The whole has a somewhat artificial air, in
spite of its undoubted beauty; showing that Dante was still under the
influence of the _Dugentisti_, many of whose conceits he reproduces. The
book was probably completed by 1300. It was first printed by Sermartelli
in Florence, 1576.
Canzoniere.
Besides the smaller poems contained in the _Vita Nuova_ and _Convito_
there are a considerable number of canzoni, ballate and sonnetti bearing
the poet's name. Of these many undoubtedly are genuine, others as
undoubtedly spurious. Some which have been preserved under the name of
Dante belong to Dante de Maiano, a poet of a harsher style; others which
bear the name of Aldighiero are referable to Dante's sons Jacopo or
Pietro, or to his grandsons; others may be ascribed to Dante's
contemporaries and predecessors Cino da Pistoia and others. Those which
are genuine secure Dante a place among lyrical poets scarcely if at all
inferior to that of Petrarch. Most of these were printed in _Sonetti e
canzoni_ (Giunta, 1527). The best edition of the _Canzoniere_ of Dante
is that by Fraticelli published by Barbera at Florence. His collection
includes seventy-eight genuine poems, eight doubtful and fifty-four
spurious. To these are added an Italian paraphrase of the seven
penitential psalms in _terza rima_, and a similar paraphrase of the
Credo, the seven sacraments, the ten commandments, the Lord's Prayer and
the Ave Maria.
De monarchia.
The Latin treatise _De monarchia_, in three books, contains the mature
statement of Dante's political ideas. In it he propounds the theory that
the supremacy of the emperor is derived from the supremacy of the Roman
people over the world, which was given to them direct from God. As the
emperor is intended to assure their earthly happiness, so does their
spiritual welfare depend upon the pope, to whom the emperor is to do
honour as to the first-born of the Father. The date of its publication
is almost universally admitted to be the time of the descent of Henry
VII. into Italy, between 1310 and 1313, although its composition may
have been in hand from a much earlier period. The book was first printed
by Oporinus at Basel in 1559, and placed on the Index of forbidden
books.
De vulgari eloquentia.
The treatise _De vulgari eloquentia_, in two books, also in Latin, is
mentioned in the _Convito_. Its object was first to establish the
Italian language as a literary tongue, and to distinguish the noble or
"courtly" speech which might become the property of the whole nation, at
once a bond of internal unity and a line of demarcation against external
nations, from the local dialects peculiar to different districts; and
secondly, to lay down rules for poetical composition in the language so
established. The work was intended to be in four books, but only two are
extant. The first of these deals with the language, the second with the
style and with the composition of the canzone. The third was probably
intended to continue this subject, and the fourth was destined to the
laws of the ballata and sonetto. It contains much acute criticism of
poetry and poetic diction. This work was first published in the Italian
translation of Trissino at Vicenza in 1529. The original Latin was not
published till 1577 at Paris by Jacopo Corbinelli, one of the Italians
who were brought from Florence by Catherine de' Medici, from a MS. now
preserved at Grenoble. The work was probably left unfinished in
consequence of Dante's death.
Eclogues.
Boccaccio mentions in his life of Dante that he wrote two eclogues in
Latin in answer to Johannes de Virgilio, who invited him to come from
Ravenna to Bologna and compose a great work in the Latin language. The
most interesting passage in the work is that in the first poem, where he
expresses his hope that when he has finished the three parts of his
great poem his grey hairs may be crowned with laurel on the banks of the
Arno. Although the Latin of these poems is superior to that of his prose
works, we may feel thankful that Dante composed the great work of his
life in his own vernacular. The versification, however, is good, and
there are pleasant touches of gentle humour. The _Eclogues_ have been
edited by Messrs Wicksteed and Gardiner (_Dante and Giovanni del
Virgilio_, London, 1902).
De aqua et terra.
A treatise _De aqua et terra_ has come down to us, which Dante tells us
was delivered at Mantua in January 1320 (perhaps 1321) as a solution of
the question which was being at that time much discussed--whether in any
place on the earth's surface water is higher than the earth. It was
first published at Venice in 1508, by an ecclesiastic named Moncetti,
from a MS. which he alleged to be in his possession, but which no one
seems to have seen. Its genuineness is accordingly very doubtful; but Dr
Moore has from internal evidence made out a very strong case for it.
Letters.
The _Letters_ of Dante are among the most important materials for his
biography. Giovanni Villani mentions three as specially remarkable--one
to the government of Florence, in which he complains of undeserved
exile; another to the emperor Henry VII., when he lingered too long at
the siege of Brescia; and a third to the Italian cardinals to urge them
to the election of an Italian pope after the death of Clement V. The
first of these letters has not come down to us, the two last are extant.
Besides these we have one addressed to the cardinal da Prato, one to a
Florentine friend refusing the base conditions of return from exile, one
to the princes and lords of Italy to prepare them for the coming of
Henry of Luxembourg, another to the Florentines reproaching them with
the rejection of the emperor, and a long letter to Can Grande della
Scala, containing directions for interpreting the _Divina Commedia_,
with especial reference to the _Paradiso_. Of less importance are the
letters to the nephews of Count Alessandro da Romena, to the marquis
Moroello Malespina, to Cino da Pistoia and to Guido da Polenta. The
genuineness of all the letters has at one time or another been impugned;
but the more important are now generally accepted. They have been
translated by Mr C. S. Latham, ed. by Mr G. R. Carpenter (Cambridge,
Massachusetts and London, 1891).