poetry, appearing in the form of narrative and didactic works among the Lombards and Venetians, and as lyrical poetry and the primitive drama in Central Italy. It was in harmony with the spirit of the age, and intimately connected with its thought and feeling, as these found their most splendid expression in the Church Jubilee of the year 1300, ordained by Pope Boniface. This religious poetry had hitherto remained in the hands of the people, and the germs of poetry still lay concealed in it: but it had, before and above all the rest, the claim and capacity of further development. This took place through Dante Alighieri, and the literary development of Italy reached its acme when, in his great poem, the mature art of the school was combined with the favourite subject of popular tradition. DANT X DANTE'S LIFE AND MINOR WORKS ANTE ALIGHIERI was not descended from one of the great Florentine families, but still from a stock whose past he himself regarded with a certain pride. One of his ancestors he immortalised in the "Commedia,” namely, Cacciaguida, whose spirit he encounters in the planet of Mars ("Par." xv.). He had gone to the Holy Land with the crusading army of Conrad III. in 1147, been knighted by the Emperor and fallen there. His wife, he says, came to him from the valley of the Po. She was an Alighieri, or Aldighieri, probably from Ferrara; he called his son Alaghiero, after her family name, and this name of Alaghieri, later Alighieri, subsequently passed over to the family. The son of this Alaghiero was a certain Bellincione, and his son a second Alaghiero, who was the father of Dante. His mother Bella, of unknown descent, was probably the first of Alaghiero's two wives, as Dante is in documents always named before his brother Francesco, the son of Alaghiero's other wife Lapa Cialuffi, and was accordingly the older of the two; he must therefore have lost his mother at an early age. Dante's ancestors belonged to the Guelph party, and were, in the course of the thirteenth century, twice compelled to flee from the town—in 1249, when Frederick of Antioch, the son of the Emperor Frederick II., came to the aid of the Ghibellines, and in 1260, after the battle of Montaperti. On the second occasion, the Guelphs did not return to Florence till the beginning of the year 1267. But whether it be that Dante's father Alaghiero was not banished with the rest in 1260 (perhaps because he was too young and therefore not dangerous), or that he was permitted to return sooner, or that Donna Bella came back earlier by herself, the fact remains, being attested both by the poet himself and by the oldest biographers, that Dante was born at Florence in 1265, and baptised in the church of S. Giovanni. We have no account of the education he enjoyed in his youth. Ever since Boccaccio it has been the custom to call Brunetto Latini Dante's master, and this opinion had its origin in the beautiful verses full of love and gratitude, in which he has spoken of Brunetto ("Inf." xv. 82). It is true that they show beyond a doubt that the author of the "Trésor" had a considerable influence on Dante's intellectual development; he was probably a paternal friend, who supported the younger man with counsels and doctrines, and directed and encouraged him in his studies, without being his teacher in the ordinary sense. A man like Brunetto Latini, who was then taking part in public life and was secretary of the republic, could not well have kept a school or given regular private lessons in Florence. We do not know when this intercourse with Dante took place: it is possible that | Brunetto was one of the Filosofanti, whose disputations the poet attended after the year 1291 ("Convivio," ii. 13). Towards the end of the eighties Dante had joined in several military expeditions of his native town. In 1288 he appears to have taken part in the inroads made by the Florentines into the district of the Ghibelline city of Arezzo; and, according to the statement of Leonardo Aretino, based on a letter of Dante's, now lost, he fought against the Aretines in the battle of Campaldino (June 11th, 1289), in the front rank of the Florentine cavalry. In the same year he was also present when the fortress of Caprona was taken from the Pisans, as we learn from a passage in the "Commedia" ("Inf." xxi. 95). The great event of Dante's youth is his love, and the figure that dominates everything and fills his entire life is Beatrice. He saw her for the first time when they both were children, he nine and she eight years of age. She appeared to him "clothed in a most noble colour, a humble and subdued red, girded and adorned as became her very youthful age." And his life-spirit began to tremble violently; for he has found one who will dominate him. From that time he feels himself urged on to seek the place where he may see this "youthful angel." One day, after the lapse of another space of nine years, from the day of the first meeting, she appears to him again, robed in the purest white, between two other ladies, and "passing along the way, she turned her eyes... and by her ineffable courtesy... she saluted him in such virtuous wise, that he appeared to behold the highest degree of bliss." It was the first time that her voice reached his ear, and it fills him with such joy, that he is as it were intoxicated, and takes refuge from the intercourse of man in the solitude of his chamber. He falls asleep and has a dream. On waking he puts it down in verse, and this was the origin of Dante's first sonnet: A ciascun' alma presa e gentil core, Mio cor in mano, e nelle braccia avea The poem is addressed to the lovers, that is, to the poets, and demands an explanation of the dream. In these verses, written by Dante at the age of eighteen, we have an allegory in the form of a vision, a psychological process symbolically represented-Amore giving the loved one to eat of the poet's heart; images these, which appear to us grotesque, but which are full of significance and rich in ideas. Here we have again the poetic manner of the new Florentine school, and so we can understand how Dante da Majano, the repre 1 To every captive soul and noble heart, that comes to see the present song, so that they may write me back their opinion, greeting in the name of Love, their lord. Already had a third almost of the time passed, in which each star shines brightest, when suddenly Amore appeared to me, to recall whose being fills me with horror. Joyous seemed Amore to me, holding my heart in his hand, and in his arms he held Madonna sleeping, wound in a cloth. Then he woke her, and of this glowing heart he gently gave her to eat, she showing signs of fear. Then I saw him go his way weeping. sentative of the old Provençal manner, received the sonnet in a hostile spirit and answered it in an indecent and scoffing manner, while Guido Cavalcanti congratulated the new poet from his heart, and from that time remained the dearest of his friends. Of his love Dante has told us himself in a little book called "La Vita Nuova" ("The New Life"), a prose narrative interspersed with the poems that owe their origin to the feelings which are treated in them, and which are interpreted in the prose sections. The "new life" is that life which began for the poet with the first ray of love. This love of Dante is ethereal and pure, and is elevated high above sensuality. The loved one is the ideal that has come to life, something divine, descended from heaven, in order to impart to the world a ray of the splendour of Paradise. She appears to him robed in the "noblest colour," she appears to him robed in "the whitest colour "—it is truly an apparition, something from above that has come down to him. Quite at the beginning she is "that very youthful angel," and then always "that most noble one.' He scarcely ventures from time to time to call her by her own name of Beatrice, though this name, too, has its lofty meaning: she is one who spreads around her bliss (beatitudine). The story of Dante's love is a very simple one. The events are all so insignificant. She passes him in the street and greets him; he sees her with other ladies at a wedding banquet, and she scoffs at him; he learns from the ladies how she laments over her father's death. Such are the events narrated: but they all become significant in the heart of the worshipper. It is an inner history of emotions, touching in its tenderness and sincere religious feeling. A breath of this pure worship communicates itself to us, so that it does not appear to us exaggerated. This love in its extreme chastity is timid; it conceals itself from the eyes of others and remains for a long time a secret. So great, indeed, is Dante's fear lest his sacred feelings be exposed to profane looks, that, when he cannot hide the passion that burns within him, he makes people believe that another woman is the cause of them. Twice he finds a beautiful woman, who thus serves him as it were On her he turns his eyes when he meets her, as a screen. |