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.

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." 1 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.

the grandi of the city, and played a leading part in the stormy life of Florence. Of Gemma nothing is known but her marriage.

Between 1297 and 1299, Dante, together with his brother Francesco, as appears from existing documentary evidence, were borrowers of considerable sums of money; and the largest of the debts thus incurred seem not to have been discharged till 1332, eleven years after his death, when they were paid by his sons Jacopo and Pietro.

In May, 1299, he was sent as envoy from Florence to the little, not very distant, city of San Gemignano, to urge its community to take part in a general council of the Guelf communes of Tuscany.

In the next year, 1300, he was elected one of the six Priors of Florence, to hold office from the 15th of June to the 15th of August. The Priors, together with the "gonfalonier of justice" (who had command of the body of one thousand men who stood at their service), formed the chief magistracy of the city. Florence had such jealousy of its rulers that the Priors held office but two months, so that in the course of each year thirty-six of the citizens were elected to this magistracy. The outgoing Priors, associated with twelve of the leading citizens, two from each of the sestieri, or chose their successors. Neither

wards, of the city, continuity nor steady vigor of policy was possible with an administration so shifting and of such varied composition, which by its very constitution was exposed at all times to intrigue and to attack. It was no wonder that Florence lay open to the reproach that her counsels were such that what she spun in October did not reach to mid-November (Purgatory, vi. 142-144).

His election to the priorate was the most important event in Dante's public life. "All my ills and all my troubles," he declared, "had occasion and beginning from my misfortunate election to the priorate, of which, though I was not worthy in respect of wisdom, yet I was not unworthy in fidelity and in age.” 1

The year 1300 was disastrous not only for Dante, but for Florence. She was, at the end of the thirteenth century, by far the most flourishing and powerful city of Tuscany, full of vitality and energy, and beautiful as she was strong. She was not free from civil discord, but the predominance of the Guelf party was so complete within her walls that she suffered little from the strife between Guelf and Ghibelline, which for almost a century had divided Italy into two hostile camps. In the main the Guelf party was that of the common people and the industrious classes, and in general it afforded support to the Papacy as against the Empire, while it received, in return, support from the popes. The Ghibellines, on the other hand, were mainly of the noble class, and maintainers of the Empire. The growth of the industry and commerce of Florence in the last half of the century had resulted in the establishment of the popular power, and in the suppression of the Ghibelline interest. But a bitter quarrel broke out in one of the great families in the neighboring Guelf city of Pistoia, a quarrel which raged so furiously that Florence feared that it would result in the gain of power by the Ghibellines, and she adopted the fatal policy of compelling the heads of the contending factions to take up their residence within her walls.

1 From the letter already referred to, cited by Lionardo Bruni, p. 119.

The result was that she herself became the seat of discord. Each of the two factions found ardent adherents, and, adopting the names by which they had been distinguished in Pistoia, Florence was almost instantly ablaze with the passionate quarrel between the Whites and the Blacks (Bianchi and Neri). The flames burned so high that the Pope, Boniface VIII., intervened to quench them. His intervention was vain.

It was just at this time that Dante became Prior. The need of action to restore peace to the city was imperative, and the Priors took the step of banishing the leaders of both divisions. Among those of the Bianchi was Dante's own nearest friend, Guido Cavalcante. The measure was insufficient to secure tranquillity and order. The city was in constant tumult; its conditions went from bad to worse. But in spite of civil broils, common affairs must still be attended to, and from a document preserved in the Archives at Florence we learn that on the 28th April, 1301, Dante was appointed superintendent, without salary, of works undertaken for the widening, straightening, and paving of the street of San Procolo, and making it safe for travel. On the 13th of the same month he took part in a discussion, in the Council of the Heads of the twelve greater Arts, as to the mode of procedure in the election of future Priors. On the 18th of June, in the Council of the Hundred Men, he advised against providing the Pope with a force of one hundred men which had been asked for; and again in September of the same year there is record, for the last time, of his taking part in the Council, in a discussion in regard "to the conservation of the Ordinances of Justice and the Statutes of the People."