poet, that one feels compelled to pass his arguments over in silence. Dr. Scartazzini rejects the theory of the "Canzoni Pietrose" entirely, although he admits their undoubted genuineness, and supposes that three out of the four were intended by Dante to have been introduced into the "Convito." The notion of Dante's love for a lady named Pietra is a fairly old one, dating back to the sixteenth century. It would indeed seem to be merely founded upon one of these poems. A Paduan writer of verses, Antonio Maria Amadi, in a long commentary upon one of his own canzoni, published in Padua in 1565, quotes from Dante's Amor tu vedi bene, one of these four, and declares that it was written for the love of Madonna Pietra, of the noble family of the Scrovigni of Padua, and more modern Paduan Dante scholars have striven hard for the honour of their native city. It is quite certain that Dante was personally acquainted with this family. In the seventh circle of Hell, where the wretched usurers are seated and enduring their fiery torment, Dante sees an unfortunate creature with the Scrovigni arms displayed on the purse hanging at his neck : Ed un che d'una scrofa azzurra e grossa Mi disse: "Che fai tu in questa fossa?”1 It was a member of the same family who erected the Madonna of the Arena, whose walls are covered with Giotto's splendid frescoes. His portrait is introduced into the Paradise of the painter's "Last Judgment," and it is most probable that Dante and Giotto met at Padua. There is no doubt that there really was a person called Pietra Degli Scrovigni, and that she was in all respects a very charming and admirable young lady; but, unfortunately for Paduan critical patriotism, there can also be very little doubt that at the time when Dante probably wrote these "Canzoni Pietrose" this special Pietra had not yet been born. Other attempts have been made to identify Dante's Pietra, but they are merely guesswork. The fact, however, remains that we have this peculiar little group of four poems, of which the authenticity of three at least is beyond doubt, marked with their own peculiarities as much as the larger, better-known, and undoubtedly more excellent group of poems connected with Beatrice and the "Vita Nuova." This is the burden of Dante's song throughout the four-this sol pensier damore, as he calls it: "Inferno," xvii. 64-66: "And one, who had his white pouch emblazoned with an azure gravid sow, said to me, 'What dost thou in this ditch ?'” La mente mia è più dura che pietra, In tener forte immagine di pietra. My mind is harder than rock in holding fast this image of stone." We are as much justified in (mentally, at least-as a second meaning) writing the pietra in the last line with a capital :— In tener forte immagine di Pietra, and so engrave upon the stone a lady's name, as modern editors of the "Inferno" are justified, in spite of the views of Dante's earliest commentators, in writing feltro with a capital F in the famous line in the first canto : E sua nazion sarà tra feltro e feltro, and so embroider on the felt the name of an Italian town. Dante's idea in these canzoni is, of course, obviously based on the familiar text in the Vulgate, "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram." The four poems of which this thought is the kernel are the Canzone (No. IX. in Fraticelli's edition), Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro ("So in my speech would I fain be harsh"); the sestina, which is quoted by Dante himself in the "Volgare Eloquio," and has been so exquisitely rendered into English verse by Dante Rossetti, Al poco giorno ed al gran cerchio d'ombra ("To the dim light and the large circle of shade"); the Canzone (X. in Fraticelli's edition) or double sest na, also cited by Dante in the "Volgare Eloquio," and which is the one which first suggested to the Paduan writer already mentioned this love of Dante's for Donna Pietra, Amor tu vedi ben che questa donna (“Love thou seest well that this lady"); and finally the Canzone on Winter (XI. ed. Fraticelli), from which the above lines are taken, Io son venuto al punto della rota (“I am come to the point of the wheel "). The only poem of these four in which there is no mention of the winter is the first (Canzone IX. ed. Frat.), which Dean Plumptre, who translates it under the title of the "Lover's Threats," seems to regard as of doubtful authenticity and would connect with that more famous canzone usually ascribed to Fazio degli Uberti (Io miro i crespi e gli biondi capegli De' quali ha fatto per me rete Amore—“I gaze upon that crisp and golden hair of which Love has made a net for me"), mainly apparently on account of what he calls their "wild sensual Swinburnian eagerness of passion." It is, however, quoted by Petrarch, but, as he does not expressly say that it is Dante that he is quoting, this cannot be taken as a very strong argument for its genuineness, although the context would certainly seem to point to Dante as the poet to whom Petrarch has recourse for the line in question. In the fifth Canzone in vita di Madonna Laura he ends each stanza with a line from another poet, the last stanza ending with a line from another poem of his own; the first is from Arnaldo Daniello, the second and fourth are well-known lines from canzoni of Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia, while the third stanza ends with Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro ; and the place thus indicated in this little quotation history of love poetry most clearly can belong to no other but Dante Alighieri. Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro, But, upon the hypothesis of the object of this poem being a real woman, we might also translate the line As is in all her acts this Pietra fair! or at least understand this as a probable second meaning. It is a bitter outcry upon his lady's hardness and the ruthless lordship of Love beneath which the poet lies prostrate. For this stone he is enduring in his heart the torments of the fiery lake, and there is a wild exaggerated burst of fierce fancy of violently grasping her golden hair, and, in spite of her, gazing his fill into those bright eyes; and so Guarderei presso e fiso, Per vendicar lo fuggir che mi face, "I would gaze closely and fixedly to venge me for her flight from me, and then with love render her peace." But he will not disclose her name or at least only in this mysterious enigmatic way-which would seem to imply that Pietra is but her name inasmuch as she is stone to him; for the poet says to Love : Perchè non ti ritemi Rodermi così il core scorza a scorza, Com' io di dire altrui che ten dà forza? or, as Dr. Plumptre renders it: Why hast thou no dismay Thus to devour my whole heart bit by bit, As I to tell who gives thee strength for it? This canzone, whether genuine or not, is far surpassed in beauty and in interest by the sestina. That Dante looked upon this latter composition of his with very great favour (and with good reason too!) is shown from his twice quoting it in the "De Vulgari Eloquentia." Later on in the history of Italian poetry the sestina became a favourite form with Petrarch, and in its construction Dante seems to regard himself as a follower of that gran maestro d'amor, Arnaldo Daniello. For Dante a sestina appears to be essentially a canzone composed of unrhymed stanzas, that is, of stanzas in which there is no question of arrangement of rhymes, but which proceed throughout without the repetition of any musical phrase.' We have in each stanza the same words repeated at the ending of the lines, but in a different order, the whole composition "ringing its manifold changes like those of a chime of bells upon the six words which are chosen as a theme." 2 It is in this sestina that a portrait is given us of the object of Dante's love-La dura pietra Che parla e sente come fosse donna ---"the hard stone [? Pietra] which talks and hears as though it were a lady "—a portrait which can be compared with that of the Beatrice of the "Vita Nuova" and the "Divina Commedia." Neither in the "Vita Nuova" nor the "Divina Commedia” are we told anything of the colour of Beatrice's hair, but Dante beholds her robed in the spotless white of Faith and Purity, or the subdued and goodly crimson of Love and Charity, or again in the Earthly Paradise clad in all the three mystical colours and crowned with the olive of Wisdom: Sopra candido vel cinta d'oliva Donna m'apparve, sotto verde manto, The divine air of May is around Beatrice at her coming into the poet's New Life; she frequents those sacred places where words are to be heard of the Queen of Glory; the roses and lilies of summer rain upon her apparition from the hands of Angels on the banks of Lethe. Green is the hue of Pietra's robe too-green the colour of Hope-but there are hopes that are of the earth besides that sacred Hope whose source is Revelation and whose object is Eternal Beatitude. Pietra's hair is golden, and crowned, not with the olive but with a garland of grass-grass that will perish, for has not Dante himself said- 'Plumptre, "The Commedia and Canzoniere," vol. ii. p. 261. A. G. F. Howell, Dante's "De Vulgari Eloquentia," translated into English, with notes. 8 1 Purg. xxx. 31–33: "Crowned with olive over white veil, a lady appeared to me vested under a green mantle in colour of living flame," La vostra nominanza è color d'erba, Per cui ell'esce della terra acerba.' For her has Love shut the poet in "Among low hills faster than between walls of granite-stone." Winter is round her or at least coming on apace; the shadows of the hills over where she stands lie dark and the snows have already commenced to be thick upon them. Cold in the summer while yet the grass in the fields was fair beneath their feet, immutable now in the winter, she will not change towards her lover even when the springtide comes : Similemente questa nuova donna Si sta gelata, come neve all'ombra, (D. G. Rossetti's Translation.) And still the poet's love is unaltered, still he sees her Si fatta ch'ella avrebbe messo in pietra L'amor ch'io porto pure alla sua ombra, "so beautiful that she would have wakened in a stone the love that I bear even to her shadow." The double sestina (Canzone X. ed. Frat.), which has been mentioned already as the poem which first gave rise to this theory of a Donna Pietra, is also mentioned by Dante himself in his "De Vulgari Eloquentia." The whole structure being based upon only five rhymes results in an incessant cry of pietra, Pietra ! throughout the poem. It is not otherwise of much interest or importance, its involved and artificial form depriving it of any real value. We have again the similes from nature in winter, the poet's protestation of never dying devotion, and his call upon Love for pity on him in his lady's ruthless cruelty. Apparently he would seek relief from his passion in forcing his mind to dwell upon the difficult task of this complicated form of composition; the whole poem is completely artificial and the envoi gives the pith of it. He will do for this lady, this cold 'Purg. xi. 115-117: "Your fame is like the colour of grass, which comes and goes, and hat discolours it through which it comes forth unripe from the ground," |