Guido Orlandi. “Sonnet. Against the ‘White’ Ghibellines.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848?; 1861
Rhyme: abbaabbacdecde
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

DGR clearly seems to have decided to translate this sonnet to illustrate the kind of hostility that was directed at Dante by his enemies in Florence. The sonnet refers to the key event of 1316, when Dante and other Florentine exiles were offered pardons if a fine were paid and public penance made in the Baptistry. Unlike some others, Dante scorned the degrading terms—his reply was made in his famous Epistola XII—and he died in exile.

DGR's source was Trucchi's Poesie Italiana inedite (I.244).

Textual History: Composition

Probably an early translation, late 1840s.

Printing History

The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 177d-1861.raw.xml