1855.] on Dante and the " Divina Commedia.^* 119 



historians of this century, whose recent loss their countrymen have 

 so much reason to regret, might be adduced as illustrations of the 

 statement. Troya, by his researches on Dante's life, and on the 

 meaning of the well-known lines — 



" Infin che '1 Veltro 



Verr^,, che la far^ morir di doglia." 



Inf, i. 101-102. 



was led to write a mediaeval history of Italy ; and Balbo, by a 

 converse process, ended his studies on the mediaeval history of Italy, 

 by writing a life of Dante. 



There was. an event in that life, however, which he would not 

 omit to notice, as it had a peculiar interest for an English audience. 

 Dante visited, and most probably attended a course of theology at, 

 Oxford. Boccaccio asserts, in some Latin verses, which he 

 addressed to Petrarca, in sending him a copy of the " Commedia" 

 that Dante had been 



" . . . . Parisios dudum, extremosque Britannos." 



Boccaccio, who was born in 1313, had certainly heard it from 

 his father, who resided in Paris as a merchant ; and who, being a 

 Florentine, had no doubt known, and perhaps been familiar with, 

 Dante. John, of Serravalle, Bishop of Fermo, in 1416, translated 

 into Latin, and expounded the " Commedia" at the request of 

 Cardinal Amadeo de Saluces, and of the Bishops of Bath and Salis- 

 bury, whom he had met at the Council of Constance. In the pre- 

 face to his translation, which is in MS. in the Vatican library, 

 Serravalle says : " Dantes dilexit Theologiam sacram, in qua diu 

 studuit tarn in Oxoniis in regno Angliae quam Parisiis ;^' and 

 again : " Se injurentute dedit omnibus artibu^ liberalibus, studens 

 eas Padu,ae, Jjononiae, demum Oxoniis et Parisiis" The lines 

 allusive to the murder of the nephew of Henry III., in the church 

 of Viterbo, by Guy de Montfort : — 



" Mostrocci un* ombra dall' un canto sola, 

 Dicendo, colui fesse in grembo a Dio 

 Lo cor che 'n sul Tamigi ancor si cola." 



Lif. xii. 118-120. 



also evidence the same fact ; for they convey an impression that 

 Dante had himself seen the place in which the head of the 

 murdered youth was preserved. His visit to Oxford must have 

 been between 1308 and 1311, when, after leaving the Malaspinas, 

 he went to Paris. 



The speaker expressed a wish that some one of the sons of that 

 great seat of learning would enquire fully into the subject, to which 

 as yet no attention had been paid, and to the glories of his " Alma 

 Mater," add that of having received within her walls the greatest 

 poet of Christendom. 



