592 



DANTE. 



between two parties the Bianclii and Neri (the 

 White and Black). The former, beinsr the weaker, 

 sought assistance from pope Boniface VIII.; and the 

 pope determined to send Charles of Valois, brother 

 of Philip IV. of France, who was at that time in Rome, 

 to quiet the troubles in Florence. Dante, as prior 

 of the city, resisted this interference, apprehending 

 dangerous consequences to the state, and was there- 

 fore banished, in 1302, together with the leaders of 

 the Bianchi, and his property confiscated, because 

 he was unable to pay a fine of 8000 lire, wliich was 

 imposed npon him. His life was now an almost un- 

 interrupted series of misfortunes. He and his com- 

 panions in adversity, according to some writers, join- 

 ed the party of the Gliibelines, or adherents of the 

 emperor, tlirough whose assistance alone they could 

 hope to return to their country. The proofs of tliis 

 are found in numerous passages in liis poems, which 

 contain the bitterest invectives against Boniface, the 

 head of the churcli, whom he places in hell. Dante 

 then lived some tune in Arezzo ; but, the attempt of 

 the Bianchi, in 1304, to force their way back to Flo- 

 rence, having failed, he left Tuscany, and took refuge 

 in Verona, with Alboin della Scala, who had gained 

 among his contemporaries the name cf the Great, 

 from the support which talent and merit always found 

 in him. But Dante, constantly in a state of inquie- 

 tude, and in expectation of his recall, could not, as 

 Petrarch relates, conceal his dejection and bitterness 

 from his benefactors ; and this seems to be the rea- 

 son why he nowhere found a permanent residence. 

 He speaks in a very touching manner, in his Inferno, 

 of die pain of having to " ascend the stairs of other 

 men," as he describes his state of dependence. On 

 this account, several cities could pretend to the ho- 

 nour of having had the Divina Commedia composed 

 within their walls. Besides visiting many places of 

 Italy, Dante likewise went to Paris. He endeavour- 

 ed, at length, to effect liis restoration to Florence, by 

 means of the emperor Henry VII., then in Italy, on 

 which occasion, he wrote a work on monarchy, De 

 Monarchia, about the year 1309 (Basil, 1559 ; also 

 contained hi four vols., in the Venetian edition of liis 

 \vorks) ; but this hope was disappointed. During the 

 last years of his hie, he resided at Ravenna, with 

 Guido "Novello da Polenta, the lord of that city, who, 

 as a friend of the muses, willingly afforded him pro- 

 tection. His death took place in this city, Septem- 

 ber 14, 1321, and he was buried in the church of the 

 Minorites, where, in 1483, a, Venetian nobleman, 

 Bernardo Bembo, father of the celebrated cardinal of 

 that name, erected a splendid monument to his me- 

 mory. The Florentines, who had banished and per- 

 secuted their great countryman, now, like the Athe- 

 nians after the execution of Socrates, endeavoured to 

 expiate their injustice, by paying that honour to his 

 memory which they had denied to him during his life. 

 They caused his portrait, painted by Giotto, to be 

 hung up in a public place in the city, demanded, al- 

 though in vain, liis remains from the inhabitants ol 

 Ravenna, and appointed distinguished scholars to lec- 

 ture on his poem. 



Boccaccio, in his Vita di Dante, describes him as a 

 man of firm, but yet gentle and engaging character, 

 altogether different from the account of Giovanni 

 Villani. His face, of which many portraits exist, is 

 characterized by the sharpness and extenuation of the 

 features, and the stern melancholy of the expression. 

 Of the six children whom Dante left, his own eldest 

 sons, Pietro and Jacopo, made themselves known as 

 scholars, and, among other works, wrote a commen- 

 tary upon the poem of their father, which has not, 

 however, been published. 



This great poem, since the year 1472, has passet 

 through nearly sixty editions, and has had a greater 



number of commentators Uian any other work since the 

 revival of letters. Early in Uie seventeenth century, 

 an edition was projected, in a hundred volumes, by Ck> 

 nacci, a Florentine noble, wherein he purposed, by 

 appropriating a volume to each canto, to comprise, 

 in chronological order, all the commentaries then ex 

 isting, together with a Latin translation in the Strozzi 

 library. Since that period, new editions liave repeat- 

 edly made their appearance. The hist is that of Ga- 

 briele Rosetti, to be completed in six volumes, two 

 of which (London, 1826, comprising IS Inferno) are 

 published. In many respects, this last must be con- 

 sidered a singular commentary. The great ii' 

 Dante is very often measured by the immense variety 

 of commentators on his work, and their declaration 

 tliat they believe Dante yet imperfectly understood. 

 We do not think so, nor conceive that the jm 

 which are most unintelligible shed the greatest lustre 

 on the author. A passage which has been different- 

 ly understood by every interpreter for centuries, and 

 allows every one to assign a new meaning to it, 

 naturally induces a doubt whether the writer him- 

 self attached to it any clear idea, or whether tin- 

 idea was not so distorted as not to admit of being 

 traced. Should we consider the Sibylline books as 

 containing profound treasures of wisdom, because 

 their obscure prophecies admitted of any interpreta- 

 tion ? or the Koran, because it has had thousands of 

 commentators ? or do we think that law in a code 

 the wisest, about the meaning of which there has 

 been most dispute? The poem of Dante, like so 

 many productions of antiquity, is, on the whole, a 

 grand exhibition of genius ; and, therefore, com- 

 mentators have felt themselves obliged to seek per- 

 severingly for a meaning to every passage ; and a 

 commentary, once made, was a fruitful source of 

 more, by stimulating men's vanity to discover new 

 interpretations, the human mind, as we all know, 

 being often much more busily employed in displaying 

 its ingenuity than hi sincerely seeking for truth. 

 Dante describes, hi his Hell, the sufferings of the 

 damned with an inexhaustible ingenuity and a truly 

 poetical penetration into human life and character. 

 In the Purgatory, he portrays the state of souls 

 between heaven and hell, and hi his Heaven, the 

 state of the happy. The poem, like every great 

 poetic production, bears a decisive stamp of the most 

 characteristic features of the time when it was com- 

 posed. It is essentially allegorical : it displays an 

 ardent love for the learning of the ancients, and 

 treats the Romans as forefathers, with whom the 

 Italians of the author's age were in views and senti- 

 ments still intimately connected. Hence arises the 

 frequent reference to the ancient mythology, and the 

 constant blending of it with the sacred writings. 

 Why he chose Virgil as his guide through hell and 

 purgatory, is easy to explain. It was oecause he 

 was a Roman, and the greatest epic poet then 

 known (Homer being comparatively little read, and 

 it being not then understood how much Virgil copied 

 from Homer), and because Virgil manifests a con- 

 stant reverence for the emperor an important point 

 in Dante's view, who, as an inveterate Ghibeline, 

 wished all power and splendour to centre in the 

 emperor, and hated the Guelphs and the pope. Not 

 a single pope or cardinal has been admitted into his 

 heaven, whilst hosts of them are to be found in the 

 hell. Virtue and vice are the basis upon which 

 reward and punishment are distributed in the poem ; 

 but the standard by which Dante measures these, the 

 forms in which he clothes them, the images under 

 which the poet represents his abstract ideas, are 

 taken from the character of his time, or his personal 

 character and theological views. Dante showed 

 immense power hi the composition of an epic on an 



