cacy, and graceful elegance that good judges believe that in the use of rime he will never be surpassed. And truly wonderful is the sweetness and sublimity of his wise, pithy, and serious verse, with its variety and affluence, its knowledge of philosophy, its references to ancient history, and such familiarity with modern history that he seems to have been present at every event. These excellent qualities, unfolded with the gentleness of rime, take captive the mind of every reader, and especially of such as have the greatest understanding.

His invention, which was marvelous, was laid hold of with great genius, comprehending, as it does, description of the world, the heavens, and the planets, of men, the rewards and punishments of human life, happiness and misery, and the middle way that lies between these two extremes. I believe that there never was any one who took a larger or more fertile subject by which to deliver the mind of all its conceptions through the different spirits who discourse on diverse causes of things, on different countries, and on various chances of fortune.

Dante began this, his chief work, before his expulsion, and completed it afterwards in exile, as the work itself clearly reveals. He also wrote moral canzoni and sonnets. His canzoni are perfect, polished, graceful, and full of high sentiment. All of them begin in noble fashion, like the one that commences

O Love that drawest from the Heaven thy power
Even as the sun his splendor,

wherein there is a subtle philosophical comparison between the effects of the sun and the effects of love. Another begins

Three Ladies round about my heart have come.

Still another begins

Ye Ladies that have cognizance of Love.

And in many other canzoni he is equally subtle, scholarly, and polished. In his sonnets he does not show the same power.

So much for his works in the vernacular; but he also wrote in Latin prose and verse: in prose, a book entitled the De Monarchia, written in unadorned fashion, with no beauty of style; also a book entitled De Vulgari Eloquentia, and many letters. In Latin verse he wrote several eclogues, and the beginning of the Commedia in hexameters, but, as he did not succeed with the style, he pursued it no further.

Dante died at Ravenna in the year 1321. He left, among others, one son by name Piero, who studied law and showed himself a man of ability. Thanks to his own powers and to the remembrance in which his father was held, he attained to great distinction and wealth, and maintained his position at Verona with considerable state. This Messer Piero had a son named Dante, who in turn had a son Lionardo, who is still living and has several children. A short time ago Lionardo came to Florence with other young men of Verona, well and honorably appointed, and visited me as a friend to the memory of his great-grandfather, Dante. I showed him the houses of the poet and of his ancestors, and called his attention to many things that were new to him because he and his family had been estranged from their fatherland. And thus Fortune turns this world, and shifts its inhabitants with the revolutions of her wheel.

Of the value of this life by Lionardo Bruni, Dr. Moore says: "We feel that we have here the work of a serious

and intelligent historian, who avoids repeating gossip, and for the most part also mere current tradition, — possibly some might say that he does this too rigidly, alarmed by the warning example of Boccaccio; one too who knows how to make use of letters, archives, and other documents in order to verify or test his statements; one, finally, who can secure both these merits without becoming dull, since his work is often enlivened by gleams of humor and touches of sympathy." 1

There are two other Lives of Dante which Dr. Moore mentions: one by Giannozzo Manetti, who lived from 1396 to 1459, and whose work is thus summarized: "This prolix and rather pretentious work has added little either to our knowledge or to our pleasure. Its only feature of originality is displayed in the inventive enterprise of the author, while the rest is a mere réchauffe of Boccaccio and Lionardo, with occasional scraps from Villani." The Life by Filelfo (1426-1480) depends for its authority on the author's own "lively imagination, unembarrassed by any reference to documents, except when he is servilely copying the very language of Lionardo, Boccaccio, or others of his prede

V

WHAT IS DEFINITELY KNOWN

HAVING given a comprehensive survey of the earliest sources of our knowledge of Dante, we subjoin the most succinct and authoritative statement we have been able to find of what the sifting processes of five hundred years have found to be true of the external events of his life.

PROFESSOR NORTON'S NARRATIVE OF DANTE'S LIFE.1

Dante was born in Florence, in May or June, 1265. Of his family little is positively known.2 It was not among the nobles of the city, but it had place among the well-to-do citizens who formed the body of the state and the main support of the Guelf party. Of Dante's early years, and the course of his education, nothing is known save what he himself tells us in his various writings, or what may be inferred from them. Lionardo Bruni, eminent as an historian and as a public man, who wrote a Life of Dante about a hundred years after his death, cites a letter of which we have no other knowledge, in which, if the letter be

1 Library of the World's Best Literature, article on Dante. (By permission.)

2 In the Paradiso (canto xv.) he introduces his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida, who tells of himself that he followed the Emperor Conrad to fight against the Mohammedans, was made a knight by him, and was slain in the war.

1

genuine, the poet says that he took part in the battle of Campaldino, fought in June, 1289. The words are: "At the battle of Campaldino, in which the Ghibelline party was almost all slain and undone, I found myself not a child in arms, and I experienced great fear, and finally the greatest joy, because of the shifting fortunes of the fight." It seems likely that Dante was present, probably under arms, in the latter part of the same summer, at the surrender to the Florentines of the Pisan stronghold of Caprona, where, he says (Inferno, xxi. 94-96), "I saw the foot soldiers afraid, who came out under compact from Caprona, seeing themselves among so many enemies."

Years passed before any other event in Dante's life is noted with a certain date. An imperfect record preserved in the Florentine archives mentions his taking part in a discussion in the so-called Council of a Hundred Men, on the 5th of June, 1296. This is of importance as indicating that he had before this time become a member of one of the twelve Arts,

enrollment in one of which was required for the acquisition of the right to exercise political functions in the state, and also as indicating that he had a place in the chief of those councils by which public measures were discussed and decided. The Art of which he was a member was that of the physicians and druggists (medici e speziali), an Art whose dealings included commerce in many of the products of the East.

Not far from this time, but whether before or after 1296 is uncertain, he married. His wife was Gemma dei Donati. The Donati were a powerful family among

1 Vide p. 119.