Dante and His Circle: With the Italian Poets Preceding Him (1100—1200

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Document Title: Dante and His Circle: With the Italian Poets Preceding Him (1100—1200—1300).

Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Date of publication: 1874

Publisher: Ellis and White, 29 New Bond Street

Printer: John Strangeways

Edition: 2

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

page: [frontpaste]

Note: An pasted-in bookplate of “Mark Samuels Lasner” appears.

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Manuscript Addition: Ellen Terry -

Editorial Description: Previous book owner has inscribed her name.

Manuscript Addition: 85- / URSx'81 / 1 s[?] / Ellen Terry's copy

Editorial Note: Book description in unknown hand.

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Note: blank page

page: [i]

DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE:

With the Italian Poets preceding Him.

(1100—1200—1300).

A COLLECTION OF LYRICS,

EDITED, AND TRANSLATED IN THE ORIGINAL METRES, BY

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

REVISED AND RE-ARRANGED EDITION.

PART I.

Dante's Vita Nuova, &c.

Poets of Dante's Circle.

PART II.

Poets chiefly before Dante.

LONDON:

ELLIS AND WHITE, 29 NEW BOND STREET.

1874.

page: [ii]

LONDON:

Printed by John Strangeways,

Castle St. Leicester Sq.

page: [iii]

TO MY MOTHER

I DEDICATE THIS NEW EDITION

OF A BOOK PRIZED BY HER LOVE.

page: [iv]

Note: blank page

page: [v]

Advertisement to the present Edition.

In re-entitling and re-arranging this book (originally

published in 1861 as The Early Italian Poets ,) my

object has been to make more evident at a first glance

its important relation to Dante. The Vita Nuova,

together with the many among Dante's lyrics and those

of his contemporaries which elucidate their personal

intercourse, are here assembled, and brought to my

best ability into clear connection, in a manner not

elsewhere attempted even by Italian or German

editors.

page: [vi]

Note: Blank page.

page: [vii]

Preface to the First Edition.

(1861).

I need not dilate here on the characteristics of the

first epoch of Italian Poetry; since the extent of

my translated selections is sufficient to afford a complete

view of it. Its great beauties may often remain un-

approached in the versions here attempted; but, at

the same time, its imperfections are not all to be

charged to the translator. Among these I may refer

to its limited range of subject and continual obscurity,

as well as to its monotony in the use of rhymes or

frequent substitution of assonances. But to compensate

for much that is incomplete and inexperienced, these

poems possess, in their degree, beauties of a kind which

can never again exist in art; and offer, besides, a

treasure of grace and variety in the formation of their

metres. Nothing but a strong impression, first of their

poetic value, and next of the biographical interest of

some of them (chiefly of those in my first division),

would have inclined me to bestow the time and trouble

which have resulted in this collection.

page: viii

Much has been said, and in many respects justly,

against the value of metrical translation. But I think

it would be admitted that the tributary art might find

a not illegitimate use in the case of poems which come

down to us in such a form as do these early Italian

ones. Struggling originally with corrupt dialect and

imperfect expression, and hardly kept alive through

centuries of neglect, they have reached that last and

worst state in which the coup-de-grace has almost been

dealt them by clumsy transcription and pedantic super-

structure. At this stage the task of talking much more

about them in any language is hardly to be entered

upon; and a translation (involving, as it does, the

necessity of settling many points without discussion,)

remains perhaps the most direct form of commentary.

The life-blood of rhymed translation is this com-

mandment,—that a good poem shall not be turned

into a bad one. The only true motive for putting

poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a fresh

nation, as far as possible, with one more possession

of beauty. Poetry not being an exact science, liter-

ality of rendering is altogether secondary to this chief

law. I say literality,—not fidelity, which is by no

means the same thing. When literality can be com-

bined with what is thus the primary condition of success,

the translator is fortunate, and must strive his utmost

to unite them; when such object can only be attained

by paraphrase, that is his only path.

Any merit possessed by these translations is derived

from an effort to follow this principle; and, in some

page: ix

degree, from the fact that such painstaking in arrange-

ment and descriptive heading as is often indispensable

to old and especially to ‘occasional’ poetry, has here

been bestowed on these poets for the first time.

That there are many defects in this collection,

or that the above merit is its defect, or that it

has no merits but only defects, are discoveries so

sure to be made if necessary (or perhaps here and

there in any case), that I may safely leave them in

other hands. The series has probably a wider scope

than some readers might look for, and includes now

and then (though I believe in rare instances) matter

which may not meet with universal approval; and whose

introduction, needed as it is by the literary aim of my

work, is I know inconsistent with the principles of

pretty bookmaking. My wish has been to give a full

and truthful view of early Italian poetry; not to make

it appear to consist only of certain elements to the

exclusion of others equally belonging to it.

Of the difficulties I have had to encounter,—the

causes of imperfections for which I have no other

excuse,—it is the reader's best privilege to remain

ignorant; but I may perhaps be pardoned for briefly

referring to such among these as concern the exigencies

of translation. The task of the translator (and with

all humility be it spoken) is one of some self-denial.

Often would he avail himself of any special grace of

his own idiom and epoch, if only his will belonged

to him: often would some cadence serve him but for

his author's structure—some structure but for his author's

page: x

cadence: often the beautiful turn of a stanza must be

weakened to adopt some rhyme which will tally, and

he sees the poet revelling in abundance of language

where himself is scantily supplied. Now he would

slight the matter for the music, and now the music for

the matter; but no, he must deal to each alike. Some-

times too a flaw in the work galls him, and he would

fain remove it, doing for the poet that which his age

denied him; but no,—it is not in the bond. His path

is like that of Aladdin through the enchanted vaults:

many are the precious fruits and flowers which he must

pass by unheeded in search for the lamp alone; happy

if at last, when brought to light, it does not prove

that his old lamp has been exchanged for a new one,

—glittering indeed to the eye, but scarcely of the same

virtue nor with the same genius at its summons.

In relinquishing this work (which, small as it is, is

the only contribution I expect to make to our English

knowledge of old Italy), I feel, as it were, divided from

my youth. The first associations I have are connected

with my father's devoted studies, which, from his own

point of view, have done so much towards the general

investigation of Dante's writings. Thus, in those early

days, all around me partook of the influence of the

great Florentine; till, from viewing it as a natural

element, I also, growing older, was drawn within the

circle. I trust that from this the reader may place

more confidence in a work not carelessly undertaken,

though produced in the spare-time of other pursuits

more closely followed. He should perhaps be told

page: xi

that it has occupied the leisure moments of not a few

years; thus affording, often at long intervals, every

opportunity for consideration and revision; and that on

the score of care, at least, he has no need to mistrust

it. Nevertheless, I know there is no great stir to be

made by launching afresh, on high-seas busy with new

traffic, the ships which have been long outstripped and

the ensigns which are grown strange.

It may be well to conclude this short preface with

a list of the works which have chiefly contributed to

the materials of the present volume. An array of

modern editions hardly looks so imposing as might a

reference to Allacci, Crescimbini, &c.; but these older

collections would be found less accessible, and all they

contain has been reprinted.

I. Poeti del primo secolo della Lingua Italiana.

2 vol. (Firenze. 1816.)
II. Raccolta di Rime antiche Toscane. 4 vol.

(Palermo. 1817.)
III. Manuale della Letteratura del primo Secolo.

del Prof. V. Nannucci. 3 vol. (Firenze. 1843.)
IV. Poesie Italiane inedite di dugento autori: raccolte

da Francesco Trucchi. 4 vol. (Prato. 1846.)
V. Opere Minori di Dante. Edizione di P. I. Fra-

ticelli. (Firenze. 1843, &c.)
VI. Rime di Guido Cavalcanti; raccolte da A.Cic-

ciaporci. (Firenze. 1813.)
VII. Vita e Poesie di Messer Cino da Pistoia. Edi-

zione di S. Ciampi. (Pisa. 1813.)

page: xii

VIII. Documenti d'Amore; di Francesco da Barbe-

rino. Annotati da F. Ubaldini. (Roma. 1640.)
IX. Del Reggimento e dei Costumi delle Donne; di

Francesco da Barberino. (Roma. 1815.)
X. Il Dittamondo di Fazio degli Uberti. (Milano.

1826.)

page: [xiii]

CONTENTS.

page: xviii

page: [xxiii]

PART I.

DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE.

I. DANTE ALIGHIERI.
II. GUIDO CAVALCANTI.
III. CINO DA PISTOIA.
IV. DANTE DA MAIANO.
V. CECCO ANGIOLIERI.
VI. GUIDO ORLANDI.
VII. BERNARDO DA BOLOGNA.
VIII. GIANNI ALFANI.
IX. DINO COMPAGNI.
X. LAPO GIANNI.
XI. DINO FRESCOBALDI.
XII. GIOTTO DI BONDONE.
XIII. SIMONE DALL' ANTELLA.
XIV. GIOVANNI QUIRINO.

page: [xxiv]

Note: blank page

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Sig. B

DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE.

INTRODUCTION TO PART I.

In the first division of this volume are included

all the poems I could find which seemed to have value as being

personal to the circle of Dante's friends, and as illustrating

their intercourse with each other. Those who know the

Italian collections from which I have drawn these pieces

(many of them most obscure) will perceive how much which

is in fact elucidation is here attempted to be embodied in

themselves, as to their rendering, arrangement, and heading:

since the Italian editors have never yet paid any of them,

except of course those by Dante, any such attention; but

have printed and reprinted them in a jumbled and dishearten-

ing form, by which they can serve little purpose except as

testi di lingua—dead stock by whose help the makers of

dictionaries may smother the language with decayed words.

Appearing now I believe for the first time in print, though

in a new idiom, from their once living writers to such living

readers as they may find, they require some preliminary

notice.

The Vita Nuova (the Autobiography or Autopsychology

of Dante's youth till about his twenty-seventh year) is

already well known to many in the original, or by means

of essays and of English versions partial or entire. It

is, therefore, and on all accounts, unnecessary to say much

page: [2]

more of it here than it says for itself. Wedded to its

exquisite and intimate beauties are personal peculiarities

which excite wonder and conjecture, best replied to in the

words which Beatrice herself is made to utter in the Com-

media: ‘Questi fù tal nella sua vita nuova.’* Thus then

young Dante was. All that seemed possible to be done

here for the work was to translate it in as free and clear a

form as was consistent with fidelity to its meaning; to

ease it, as far as possible, from notes and encumbrances;

and to accompany it for the first time with those poems from

Dante's own lyrical series which have reference to its events,

as well as with such native commentary (so to speak) as might

be afforded by the writings of those with whom its author was

at that time in familiar intercourse. Not chiefly to Dante,

then, of whom so much is known to all or may readily be

found written, but to the various other members of his circle,

these few pages should be devoted.

It may be noted here, however, how necessary a know-

ledge of the Vita Nuova is to the fullcomprehension of the

part borne by Beatrice in the Commedia. Moreover, it is

only from the perusal of its earliest and then undivulged

self-communings that we can divine the whole bitterness of

wrong to such a soul as Dante's, its poignant sense of

abandonment, or its deep and jealous refuge in memory.

Above all, it is here that we find the first manifestations of

that wisdom of obedience, that natural breath of duty, which

afterwards, in the Commedia, lifted up a mighty voice for

warning and testimony. Throughout the Vita Nuova there

is a strain like the first falling murmur which reaches the

ear in some remote meadow, and prepares us to look upon

the sea.

Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, tells us that the great

poet, in later life, was ashamed of this work of his youth.

Such a statement hardly seems reconcilable with the allu-

sions to it made or implied in the Commedia; but it is true

that the Vita Nuova is a book which only youth could have

Transcribed Footnote (page [2]):

* Purgatorio, C. xxx.

page: 3

produced, and which must chiefly remain sacred to the

young; to each of whom the figure of Beatrice, less lifelike

than lovelike, will seem the friend of his own heart. Nor is

this, perhaps, its least praise. To tax its author with effemi-

nacy on account of the extreme sensitiveness evinced by this

narrative of his love, would be manifestly unjust, when we

find that, though love alone is the theme of the Vita Nuova,

war already ranked among its author's experiences at the

period to which it relates. In the year 1289, the one pre-

ceding the death of Beatrice, Dante served with the foremost

cavalry in the great battle of Campaldino, on the eleventh of

June, when the Florentines defeated the people of Arezzo.

In the autumn of the next year, 1290, when for him, by the

death of Beatrice, the city as he says ‘sat solitary,’ such

refuge as he might find from his grief was sought in action

and danger: for we learn from the Commedia ( Hell, C. xxi.)

that he served in the war then waged by Florence upon Pisa,

and was present at the surrender of Caprona. He says,

using the reminiscence to give life to a description, in his

great way:—

‘I've seen the troops out of Caprona go
On terms, affrighted thus, when on the spot
They found themselves with foemen compass'd so.’

(Cayley's Translation.)

A word should be said here of the title of Dante's autobio-

graphy. The adjective Nuovo, nuova, or Novello, novella,

literally New, is often used by Dante and other early writers

in the sense of young. This has induced some editors of the

Vita Nuova to explain the title as meaning Early Life. I

should be glad on some accounts to adopt this supposition, as

everything is a gain which increases clearness to the modern

reader; but on consideration I think the more mystical

interpretation of the words, as New Life, (in reference to

that revulsion of his being which Dante so minutely de-

scribes as having occurred simultaneously with his first sight

of Beatrice,) appears the primary one, and therefore the most

page: 4

necessary to be given in a translation. The probability

may be that both were meant, but this I cannot convey.*

Among the poets of Dante's circle, the first in order, the

first in power, and the one whom Dante has styled his ‘first

friend,’ is Guido Cavalcanti, born about 1250, and thus

Dante's senior by some fifteen years. It is therefore pro-

bable that there is some inaccuracy about the statement,

often repeated, that he was Dante's fellow-pupil under

Brunetto Latini; though it seems certain that they both

studied, probably Guido before Dante, with the same teacher.

The Cavalcanti family was among the most ancient in

Florence; and its importance may be judged by the fact

that in 1280, on the occasion of one of the various missions

sent from Rome with the view of pacifying the Florentine

factions, the name of ‘Guido the son of Messer Cavalcante

de' Cavalcanti’ appears as one of the sureties offered by the

city, for the quarter of San Piero Scheraggio. His father

must have been notoriously a sceptic in matters of religion,

since we find him placed by Dante in the sixth circle of Hell,

Transcribed Footnote (page 4):

* I must hazard here (to relieve the first page of my translation

from a long note) a suggestion as to the meaning of the most puzzling

passage in the whole Vita Nuova,—that sentence just at the outset

which says, ‘La gloriosa donna della mia mente, la quale fù

chiamata da molti Beatrice, i quali non sapeano che si chiamare.’

On this passage all the commentators seem helpless, turning it about

and sometimes adopting alterations not to be found in any ancient

manuscript of the work. The words mean literally, ‘The glorious

lady of my mind who was called Beatrice by many who knew not

how she was called.’ This presents the obvious difficulty that the

lady's name really was Beatrice, and that Dante throughout uses

that name himself. In the text of my version I have adopted, as a

rendering, the one of the various compromises which seemed to give

the most beauty to the meaning. But it occurs to me that a less

irrational escape out of the difficulty than any I have seen suggested

may possibly be found by linking this passage with the close of the

sonnet at page 77 of the Vita Nuova, beginning, ‘I felt a spirit of

Love begin to stir,’ in the last line of which sonnet Love is made to

assert that the name of Beatrice is Love. Dante appears to have

page: 5

Transcribed Footnote (page 5):

dwelt on this fancy with some pleasure, from what is said in an

earlier sonnet (page 38) about ‘Love in his proper form’ (by which

Beatrice seems to be meant) bending over a dead lady. And it is

in connection with the sonnet where the name of Beatrice is said to

be Love, that Dante, as if to show us that the Love he speaks of is

only his own emotion, enters into an argument as to Love being merely

an accident in substance,—in other words, ‘Amore e il cor gentil

son una cosa.’ This conjecture may be pronounced extravagant;

but the Vita Nuova, when examined, proves so full of intricate and

fantastic analogies, even in the mere arrangement of its parts, (much

more than appears on any but the closest scrutiny), that it seems

admissible to suggest even a whimsical solution of a difficulty which

remains unconquered. Or to have recourse to the much more

welcome means of solution afforded by simple inherent beauty:

may not the meaning be merely that any person looking on so noble

and lovely a creation, without knowledge of her name, must have

spontaneously called her Beatrice,— i.e., the giver of blessing? This

would be analogous by antithesis to the translation I have adopted

in my text.

in one of the fiery tombs of the unbelievers. That Guido

shared this heresy was the popular belief, as is plain from an

anecdote in Boccaccio which I shall give; and some corro-

boration of such reports, at any rate as applied to

Guido's youth, seems capable of being gathered from an

extremely obscure poem which I have translated on that

account (at page 175) as clearly as I found possible. It must

be admitted, however, that there is to the full as much

devotional as sceptical tendency implied here and there in

his writings; while the presence of either is very rare. We

may also set against such a charge the fact that Dino

Compagni refers, as will be seen, to his having undertaken

a religious pilgrimage. But indeed he seems to have been

in all things of that fitful and vehement nature which would

impress others always strongly, but often in opposite ways.

Self-reliant pride gave its colour to all his moods; making

his exploits as a soldier frequently abortive through the head-

strong ardour of partisanship, and causing the perversity of

a logician to prevail in much of his amorous poetry. The

page: 6

writings of his contemporaries, as well as his own, tend to

show him rash in war, fickle in love, and presumptuous in

belief; but also, by the same concurrent testimony, he was

distinguished by great personal beauty, high accomplishments

of all kinds, and daring nobility of soul. Not unworthy, for all

the weakness of his strength, to have been the object of

Dante's early emulation, the first friend of his youth, and

his precursor and fellow-labourer in the creation of Italian

Poetry.

In the year 1267, when Guido cannot have been much

more than seventeen years of age, a last attempt was made

in Florence to reconcile the Guelfs and Ghibellines. With

this view several alliances were formed between the leading

families of the two factions; and among others, the Guelf

Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti wedded his son Guido to a

daughter of the Ghibelline Farinata degli Uberti. The

peace was of short duration; the utter expulsion of the

Ghibellines (through French intervention solicited by the

Guelfs) following almost immediately. In the subdivision,

which afterwards took place, of the victorious Guelfs into so-

called ‘Blacks’ and ‘Whites,’ Guido embraced the White

party, which tended strongly to Ghibellinism, and whose chief

was Vieri de' Cerchi, while Corso Donati headed the opposite

faction. Whether his wife was still living at the time when

the events of the Vita Nuova occurred, is probably not ascer-

tainable; but about that time Dante tells us that Guido was

enamoured of a lady named Giovanna or Joan, and whose

Christian name is absolutely all that we know of her. How-

ever, on the occasion of his pilgrimage to Thoulouse, recorded

by Dino Compagni, he seems to have conceived a fresh

passion for a lady of that city named Mandetta, who first

attracted him by a striking resemblance to his Florentine

mistress. Thoulouse had become a place of pilgrimage from

its laying claim to the possession of the body, or part of the

body, of Saint James the Greater; though the same supposed

distinction had already made the shrine of Compostella in

Gallicia one of the most famous throughout all Christendom.

page: 7

That this devout journey of Guido's had other results besides

a new love will be seen by the passage from Compagni's

Chronicle. He says:—

more about Excerpt from Compagni's Chronicle

‘A young and noble knight named Guido, son of Messer Caval-

cante Cavalcanti,—full of courage and courtesy, but disdainful,

solitary, and devoted to study,—was a foe to Messer Corso (Donati)

and had many times cast about to do him hurt. Messer Corso

feared him exceedingly, as knowing him to be of a great spirit, and

sought to assassinate him on a pilgrimage which Guido made to the

shrine of St. James; but he might not compass it. Wherefore,

having returned to Florence and being made aware of this, Guido

incited many youths against Messer Corso, and these promised to

stand by him. Who being one day on horseback with certain of the

house of the Cerchi, and having a javelin in his hand, spurred his

horse against Messer Corso, thinking to be followed by the Cerchi

that so their companies might engage each other; and he running in

on his horse cast the javelin, which missed its aim. And with

Messer Corso were Simon, his son, a strong and daring youth, and

Cecchino de' Bardi, who with many others pursued Guido with

drawn swords; but not overtaking him they threw stones after him,

and also others were thrown at him from the windows, whereby he

was wounded in the hand. And by this matter hate was increased.

And Messer Corso spoke great scorn of Messer Vieri, calling him

the Ass of the Gate; because, albeit a very handsome man, he was but

of blunt wit and no great speaker. And therefore Messer Corso would

say often, ‘To-day the Ass of the Gate has brayed,’ and so greatly

disparage him; and Guido he called Cavicchia.* And thus it was

spread abroad of the jongleurs; and especially one named Scam-

polino reported worse things than were said, that so the Cerchi might

be provoked to engage the Donati.’

Transcribed Footnote (page 7):

* A nickname chiefly chosen, no doubt, for its resemblance to

Cavalcanti. The word cavicchia, cavicchio, or caviglia means a

wooden peg or pin. A passage in Boccaccio says, ‘He had tied his

ass to a strong wooden pin,’ ( caviglia.) Thus Guido, from his mental

superiority, might be said to be the Pin to which the Ass, Messer

Vieri, was tethered at the Gate, (that is, the Gate of San Pietro,

near which he lived.) However, it seems quite as likely that the

nickname was founded on a popular phrase by which one who fails

in any undertaking is said ‘to run his rear on a peg,’ ( dare del culo

in un cavicchio .) The haughty Corso Donati himself went by the

page: 8

Transcribed Footnote (page 8):

name of Malefammi or ‘Do-me-harm.’ For an account of his death

in 1307, which proved in keeping with his turbulent life, see Dino

Compagni's Chronicle, or the Pecorone of Giovanni Fiorentino,

(Gior. xxiv. Nov. 2.)

The praise which Compagni, his contemporary, awards to

Guido at the commencement of the foregoing extract,

receives additional value when viewed in connection with

the sonnet addressed to him by the same writer (see page

158 ), where we find that he could tell him of his faults.

Such scenes as the one related above had become

common things in Florence, which kept on its course from

bad to worse till Pope Boniface VIII resolved on sending a

legate to propose certain amendments in its scheme of

government by Priori or representatives of the various arts

and companies. These proposals, however, were so ill

received, that the legate, who arrived in Florence in the

month of June, 1300, departed shortly afterwards greatly

incensed, leaving the city under a papal interdict. In the

ill-considered tumults which ensued we again hear of Guido

Cavalcanti.

more about Excerpt from Giovanni Villani's History of Florence

‘It happened (says Giovanni Villani in his History of Florence)

that in the month of December (1300) Messer Corso Donati with his

followers, and also those of the house of the Cerchi and their

followers, going armed to the funeral of a lady of the Frescobaldi

family, this party defying that by their looks would have assailed the

one the other; whereby all those who were at the funeral having risen

up tumultuously and fled each to his house, the whole city got under

arms, both factions assembling in great numbers, at their respective

houses. Messer Gentile de' Cerchi, Guido Cavalcanti, Baldinuccio

and Corso Adimari, Baschiero della Tosa and Naldo Gherardini,

with their comrades and adherents on horse and on foot, hastened to

St. Peter's Gate to the house of the Donati. Not finding them

there they went on to San Pier Maggiore, where Messer Corso was

with his friends and followers; by whom they were encountered and

put to flight, with many wounds and with much shame to the party

of the Cerchi and to their adherents.’

By this time we may conjecture as probable that Dante,

in the arduous position which he then filled as chief of the

page: 9

nine Priori on whom the government of Florence devolved,

had resigned for far other cares the sweet intercourse of

thought and poetry which he once held with that first friend

of his who had now become so factious a citizen. Yet it is

impossible to say how much of the old feeling may still have

survived in Dante's mind when, at the close of the year 1300

or beginning of 1301, it became his duty, as a faithful

magistrate of the republic, to add his voice to those of his

colleagues in pronouncing a sentence of banishment on the

heads of both the Black and White factions, Guido Caval-

canti being included among the latter. The Florentines had

been at last provoked almost to demand this course from

their governors, by the discovery of a conspiracy, at the

head of which was Corso Donati, (while among its leading

members was Simone de' Bardi, once the husband of

Beatrice Portinari), for the purpose of inducing the Pope to

subject the republic to a French peace-maker ( Paciere) and

so shamefully free it from its intestine broils. It appears

therefore that the immediate cause of the exile to which both

sides were subjected lay entirely with the ‘Black’ party, the

leaders of which were banished to the Castello della Pieve

in the wild district of Massa Trabœria, while those of the

‘White’ faction were sent to Sarzana, probably (for more

than one place bears the name) in the Genovesato. ‘But

this party’ (writes Villani) ‘remained a less time in exile,

being recalled on account of the unhealthiness of the place,

which made that Guido Cavalcanti returned with a sickness,

whereof he died. And of him was a great loss; seeing that

he was a man, as in philosophy, so in many things deeply

versed; but therewithal too fastidious and prone to take

offence.*’ His death apparently took place in 1301.

When the discords of Florence ceased, for Guido, in

death, Dante also had seen their native city for the last time.

Before Guido's return he had undertaken that embassy to

Transcribed Footnote (page 9):

* ‘Troppo tenero e stizzoso.’ I judge that ‘tenero’ here is rather

to be interpreted as above than meaning ‘impressionable’ in love

affairs, but cannot be certain.

page: 10

Rome which bore him the bitter fruit of unjust and perpetual

exile: and it will be remembered that a chief accusation

against him was that of favour shown to the White party on

the banishment of the factions.

Besides the various affectionate allusions to Guido in the

Vita Nuova, Dante has unmistakeably referred to him in at

least two passages of the Commedia. One of these refer-

ences is to be found in those famous lines of the Purgatory

(C. xi.) where he awards him the palm of poetry over Guido

Guinicelli (though also of the latter he speaks elsewhere with

high praise,) and implies at the same time, it would seem, a

consciousness of his own supremacy over both.

‘Against all painters Cimabue thought
To keep the field. Now Giotto has the cry,
And so the fame o' the first wanes night to nought.
Thus one from other Guido took the high
Glory of language; and perhaps is born
He who from both shall bear it by-and-bye.’

The other mention of Guido is in that pathetic passage of

the Hell (C. x.) where Dante meets among the lost souls

Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti:—

‘All roundabout he look'd, as though he had
Desire to see if one was with me else.
But after his surmise was all extinct,
He weeping said: “If through this dungeon blind
Thou goest by loftiness of intellect,—
Where is my son, and wherefore not with thee?”
And I to him: “Of myself come I not:
He who there waiteth leads me thoro' here,
Whom haply in disdain your Guido had.”*

Raised upright of a sudden, cried he: “How
Did'st say He had? Is he not living still?
Doth not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?”

Transcribed Footnote (page 10):

* Virgil, Dante's guide through Hell. Any prejudice which

Guido entertained against Virgil depended, no doubt, only on his

strong desire to see the Latin language give place, in poetry and

literature, to a perfected Italian idiom.

page: 11

When he perceived a certain hesitance
Which I was making ere I should reply,
He fell supine, and forth appear'd no more.’

Dante, however, conveys his answer afterwards to the spirit

of Guido's father, through another of the condemned also

related to Guido, Farinata degli Uberti, with whom he has

been speaking meanwhile:—

‘Then I, as in compunction for my fault,
Said: “Now then shall ye tell that fallen one
His son is still united with the quick.
And, if I erst was dumb to the response,
I did it, make him know, because I thought
Yet on the error you have solved for me.”’

(W. M. Rossetti's Translation.)

The date which Dante fixes for his vision is Good Friday of

the year 1300. A year later, his answer must have been

different. The love and friendship of his Vita Nuova had

then both left him. For ten years Beatrice Portinari had

been dead, or (as Dante says in the Convito) ‘lived in

heaven with the angels and on earth with his soul.’ And

now, distant and probably estranged from him, Guido Caval-

canti was gone too.

Among the Tales of Franco Sacchetti, and in the

Decameron of Boccaccio, are two anecdotes relating to

Guido. Sacchetti tells us how, one day that he was intent

on a game at chess, Guido (who is described as ‘one who

perhaps had not his equal in Florence’) was disturbed by a

child playing about, and threatened punishment if the noise

continued. The child, however, managed slily to nail

Guido's coat to the chair on which he sat, and so had the

laugh against him when he rose soon afterwards to fulfil

his threat. This may serve as an amusing instance of

Guido's hasty temper, but is rather a disappointment after

its magniloquent heading, which sets forth how ‘Guido Ca-

valcanti, being a man of great valour and a philosopher, is

defeated by the cunning of a child.’

page: 12

The ninth Tale of the sixth Day of the Decameron relates

a repartee of Guido's, which has all the profound platitude of

mediæval wit. As the anecdote, however, is interesting on

other grounds, I translate it here.

more about Excerpt from the Ninth Tale of the Sixth Day of Boccaccio's Decameron

‘You must know that in past times there were in our city certain

goodly and praiseworthy customs no one of which is now left,

thanks to avarice which has so increased with riches that it has

driven them all away. Among the which was one whereby the

gentlemen of the outskirts were wont to assemble together in divers

places throughout Florence, and to limit their fellowships to a

certain number, having heed to compose them of such as could fitly

discharge the expense. Of whom to-day one, and to-morrow an-

other, and so all in turn, laid tables each on his own day for all the

fellowship. And in such wise often they did honour to strangers of

worship and also to citizens. They all dressed alike at least once in

the year, and the most notable among them rode together through the

city; also at seasons they held passages of arms, and specially on the

principal feast-days, or whenever any news of victory or other glad

tidings had reached the city. And among these fellowships was one

headed by Messer Betto Brunelleschi, into the which Messer Betto

and his companions had often intrigued to draw Guido di Messer

Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti; and this not without cause, seeing that

not only he was one of the best logicians that the world held, and a

surpassing natural philosopher, (for the which things the fellowship

cared little), but also he exceeded in beauty and courtesy, and was

of great gifts as a speaker; and everything that it pleased him to do,

and that best became a gentleman, he did better than any other;

and was exceeding rich and knew well to solicit with honourable

words whomsoever he deemed worthy. But Messer Betto had never

been able to succeed in enlisting him; and he and his companions

believed that this was through Guido's much pondering which

divided him from other men. Also because he held somewhat of

the opinion of the Epicureans, it was said among the vulgar sort,

that his speculations were only to cast about whether he might find

that there was no God. Now on a certain day Guido having left

Or San Michele, and held along the Corso degli Adimari as far as

San Giovanni (which oftentimes was his walk); and coming to the

great marble tombs which now are in the Church of Santa Reparata,

but were then with many others in San Giovanni; he being

between the porphyry columns which are there among those tombs,

page: 13

and the gate of San Giovanni which was locked;—it so chanced

that Messer Betto and his fellowship came riding up by the Piazza

di Santa Reparata, and seeing Guido among the sepulchres, said,

‘Let us go and engage him.’ Whereupon, spurring their horses in

the fashion of a pleasant assault, they were on him almost before he

was aware, and began to say to him, ‘Thou, Guido, wilt none

of our fellowship; but lo now! when thou shalt have found that

there is no God, what wilt thou have done?’ To whom Guido,

seeing himself hemmed in among then, readily replied, ‘Gentlemen,

ye are at home here, and may say what ye please to me.’ Where-

with, setting his hand on one of those high tombs, being very light

of his person, he took a leap and was over on the other side; and

so having freed himself from them, went his way. And they all

remained bewildered, looking on one another; and began to say

that he was but a shallow-witted fellow, and that the answer he had

made was as though one should say nothing; seeing that where

they were, they had not more to do than other citizens, and Guido

not less than they. To whom Messer Betto turned and said thus:

‘Ye yourselves are shallow-witted if ye have not understood him.

He has civilly and in few words said to us the most uncivil thing

in the world; for if ye look well to it, these tombs are the homes of

the dead, seeing that in them the dead are set to dwell; and here

he says that we are at home; giving us to know that we and all

other simple unlettered men, in comparison of him and the learned,

are even as dead men; wherefore, being here, we are at home.’

Thereupon each of them understood what Guido had meant, and

was ashamed; nor ever again did they set themselves to engage

him. Also from that day forth they held Messer Betto to be a subtle

and understanding knight.’

In the above story mention is made of Guido Cavalcanti's

wealth, and there seems no doubt that at that time the

family was very rich and powerful. On this account I am

disposed to question whether the Canzone at page 172 (where

the author speaks of his poverty) can really be Guido's work,

though I have included it as being interesting if rightly

attributed to him; and it is possible that, when exiled, he

may have suffered for the time in purse as well as person.

About three years after his death, on the 10th June, 1304, the

Black party plotted together and set fire to the quarter of

page: 14

Florence chiefly held by their adversaries. In this confla-

gration the houses and possessions of the Cavalcanti were

almost entirely destroyed; the flames in that neighbourhood

(as Dino Compagni records) gaining rapidly in consequence

of the great number of waxen images in the Virgin's shrine

at Or San Michele; one of which, no doubt, was the very

image resembling his lady to which Guido refers in a sonnet

(see page 136.) After this, their enemies succeeded in

finally expelling from Florence the Cavalcanti family,*

greatly impoverished by this monstrous fire in which nearly

two thousand houses were consumed.

Guido appears, by various evidence, to have written,

besides his poems, a treatise on Philosophy and another on

Oratory, but his poems only have survived to our day. As a

poet, he has more individual life of his own than belongs to

any of his predecessors; by far the best of his pieces being

those which relate to himself, his loves and hates. The best

known, however, and perhaps the one for whose sake the

rest have been preserved, is the metaphysical canzone on the

Nature of Love, beginning, ‘Donna mi priega,’ and intended,

it is said, as an answer to a sonnet by Guido Orlandi, written

as though coming from a lady, and beginning, ‘Onde si

muove e donde nasce Amore?’ On this canzone of Guido's

there are known to exist no fewer than eight commentaries,

some of them very elaborate and written by prominent

learned men of the middle ages and renaissance; the earliest

being that by Egidio Colonna, a beatified churchman who

died in 1316; while most of the too numerous Academic

writers on Italian literature speak of this performance with

Transcribed Footnote (page 14):

* With them were expelled the still more powerful Gherardini,

also great sufferers by the conflagration; who, on being driven from

their own country, became the founders of the ancient Geraldine

family in Ireland. The Cavalcanti re-appear now and then in later

European history; and especially we hear of a second Guido Caval-

canti, who also cultivated poetry, and travelled to collect books for

the Ambrosian Library; and who, in 1563, visited England as

Ambassador to the court of Elizabeth from Charles IX. of France.

page: 15

great admiration as Guido's crowning work. A love-song

which acts as such a fly-catcher for priests and pedants looks

very suspicious; and accordingly, on examination, it proves

to be a poem beside the purpose of poetry, filled with meta-

physical jargon, and perhaps the very worst of Guido's pro-

ductions. Its having been written by a man whose life and

works include so much that is impulsive and real, is easily

accounted for by scholastic pride in those early days of

learning. I have not translated it, as being of little true

interest; but was pleased lately, nevertheless, to meet with a

remarkably complete translation of it by the Rev. Charles T.

Brooks of Cambridge, United States.* The stiffness and

cold conceits which prevail in this poem may be found dis-

figuring much of what Guido Cavalcanti has left, while much

besides is blunt, obscure, and abrupt: nevertheless, if it need

hardly be said how far he falls short of Dante in variety

and personal directness, it may be admitted that he worked

worthily at his side, and perhaps before him, in adding those

qualities to Italian poetry. That Guido's poems dwelt in the

mind of Dante is evident by his having appropriated lines

from them, (as well as from those of Guinicelli,) with little

alteration, more than once, in the Commedia.

Towards the close of his life, Dante, in his Latin treatise

De Vulgari Eloquio, again speaks of himself as the friend of

a poet,—this time of Cino da Pistoia. In an early passage

of that work he says that ‘those who have most sweetly and

subtly written poems in modern Italian are Cino da Pistoia

and a friend of his.’ This friend we afterwards find to be

Dante himself; as among the various poetical examples

quoted are several by Cino followed in three instances by

Transcribed Footnote (page 15):

* This translation occurs in the Appendix to an Essay on the

Vita Nuova of Dante, including extracts, by my friend Mr. Charles

E. Norton, of Cambridge, U.S.,—a work of high delicacy and

appreciation which originally appeared by portions in the Atlantic

Monthly , but has since been augmented by the author and privately

printed in a volume which is a beautiful specimen of American

typography.

page: 16

lines from Dante's own lyrics, the author of the latter being

again described merely as ‘Amicus ejus.’ In immediate

proximity to these, or coupled in two instances with examples

from Dante alone, are various quotations taken from Guido

Cavalcanti; but in none of these cases is anything said to

connect Dante with him who was once ‘the first of his

friends.’* As commonly between old and new, the change

of Guido's friendship for Cino's seems doubtful gain. Cino's

poetry, like his career, is for the most part smoother than

that of Guido, and in some instances it rises into truth and

warmth of expression; but it conveys no idea of such

powers, for life or for work, as seem to have distinguished

the ‘Cavicchia’ of Messer Corso Donati. However, his one

talent (reversing the parable) appears generally to be made

the most of, while Guido's two or three remain uncertain

through the manner of their use.

Cino's Canzone addressed to Dante on the death of

Transcribed Footnote (page 16):

* It is also noticeable that in this treatise Dante speaks of Guido

Guinicelli on one occasion as Guido Maximus, thus seeming to

contradict the preference of Cavalcanti which is usually supposed to

be implied in the passage I have quoted from the Purgatory. It has

been sometimes surmised (perhaps for this reason) that the two

Guidos there spoken of may be Guittone d'Arezzo and Guido

Guinicelli, the latter being said to surpass the former, of whom

Dante elsewhere in the Purgatory has expressed a low opinion.

But I should think it doubtful whether the name Guittone, which

(if not a nickname, as some say) is substantially the same as Guido,

could be so absolutely identified with it: at that rate Cino da Pistoia

even might be classed as one Guido, his full name, Guittoncino,

being the diminutive of Guittone. I believe it more probable that

Guinicelli and Cavalcanti were then really meant, and that Dante

afterwards either altered his opinion, or may (conjecturably) have

chosen to imply a change of preference in order to gratify Cino da

Pistoia whom he so markedly distinguishes as his friend throughout

the treatise, and between whom and Cavalcanti some jealousy

appears to have existed, as we may gather from one of Cino's sonnets

(at page 196); nor is Guido mentioned anywhere with praise by

Cino, as other poets are.

page: 17

Sig. C

Beatrice, as well as his answer to the first sonnet of the

Vita Nuova, indicate that the two poets must have become

acquainted in youth, though there is no earlier mention

of Cino in Dante's writings than those which occur in his

treatise on the Vulgar Tongue. It might perhaps be in-

ferred with some plausibility that their acquaintance was

revived after an interruption by the sonnet and answer at

pages 124 - 125, and that they afterwards corresponded as

friends till the period of Dante's death when Cino wrote

his elegy. Of the two sonnets in which Cino expresses

disapprobation of what he thinks the partial judgments of

Dante's Commedia, the first seems written before the great

poet's death, but I should think that the second dated after

that event, as the Paradise, to which it refers, cannot have

become fully known in its author's lifetime. Another son-

net sent to Dante elicited a Latin epistle in reply, where

we find Cino addressed as ‘frater carissime.’ Among Cino's

lyrical poems are a few more written in correspondence

with Dante, which I have not translated as being of little

personal interest.

Guittoncino de' Sinibuldi (for such was Cino's full name)

was born in Pistoia, of a distinguished family, in the year

1270. He devoted himself early to the study of law, and in

1307 was Assessor of Civil Causes in his native city. In this

year, and in Pistoia, first cradle of the ‘Black’ and ‘White’

factions, their endless contest sprang into activity; the

‘Blacks’ and Guelfs of Florence and Lucca driving out the

‘Whites’ and Ghibellines, who had ruled in the city since 1300.

With their accession to power came many iniquitous laws

in favour of their own party; so that Cino, as a lawyer of

Ghibelline opinions, soon found it necessary or advisable to

leave Pistoia, for it seems uncertain whether his removal

was voluntary or by proscription. He directed his course

towards Lombardy, on whose confines the chief of the

‘White’ party in Pistoia, Filippo Vergiolesi, still held

the fortress of Pitecchio. Hither Vergiolesi had retreated

with his family and adherents when resistance in the city

page: 18

became no longer possible; and it may be supposed that

Cino came to join him, not on account of political

sympathy alone; as Selvaggia Vergiolesi, his daughter, is

the lady celebrated throughout the poet's compositions.

Three years later, the Vergiolesi and their followers, finding

Pitecchio untenable, fortified themselves on the Monte della

Sambuca, a lofty peak of the Apennines; which again they

were finally obliged to abandon, yielding it to the Guelfs of

Pistoia at the price of eleven thousand lire. Meanwhile the

bleak air of the Sambuca had proved fatal to the lady Sel-

vaggia, who remained buried there, or, as Cino expresses it

in one of his poems,

‘Cast out upon the steep path of the mountains,
Where Death had shut her in between hard stones.’

Over her cheerless tomb Cino bent and mourned, as he

has told us, when, after a prolonged absence spent partly in

France, he returned through Tuscany on his way to Rome.

He had not been with Selvaggia's family at the time of her

death; and it is probable that, on his return to the Sambuca,

the fortress was already surrendered, and her grave almost

the only record left there of the Vergiolesi.

Cino's journey to Rome was on account of his having

received a high office under Louis of Savoy, who preceded

the Emperor Henry VII. when he went thither to be crowned

in 1310. In another three years the last blow was dealt to

the hopes of the exiled and persecuted Ghibellines, by the

death of the Emperor, caused almost surely by poison.

This death Cino has lamented in a canzone. It probably

determined him to abandon a cause which seemed dead, and

return, when possible, to his native city. This he succeeded

in doing before 1319, as in that year we find him deputed

together with six other citizens, by the Government of Pistoia,

to take possession of a stronghold recently yielded to them.

He had now been for some time married to Margherita

degli Ughi, of a very noble Pistoiese family, who bore him

a son named Mino, and four daughters, Diamante, Beatrice,

page: 19

Giovanna, and Lombarduccia. Indeed, this marriage must

have taken place before the death of Selvaggia in 1310,

as in 1325-26, his son Mino was one of those by whose aid

from within, the Ghibelline Castruccio Antelminelli ob-

tained possession of Pistoia, which he held in spite of revolts

till his death some two or three years afterwards, when it

again reverted to the Guelfs.

After returning to Pistoia, Cino's whole life was devoted

to the attainment of legal and literary fame. In these pur-

suits he reaped the highest honours, and taught at the

universities of Siena, Perugia, and Florence; having for

his disciples men who afterwards became celebrated, among

whom rumour has placed Petrarch, though on examination

this seems very doubtful. A sonnet by Petrarch exists, how-

ever, commencing ‘Piangete donne e con voi pianga Amore,’

written as a lament on Cino's death and bestowing the highest

praise on him. He and his Selvaggia are also coupled

with Dante and Beatrice in the same poet's Trionfi d'Amore,

(cap. 4.)

Though established again in Pistoia, Cino resided there

but little till about the time of his death, which occurred in

1336-7. His monument, where he is represented as a pro-

fessor among his disciples, still exists in the Cathedral of

Pistoia, and is a mediæval work of great interest. Messer

Cino de' Sinibuldi was a prosperous man, of whom we have

ample records, from the details of his examinations as a

student, to the inventory of his effects after death, and the

curious items of his funeral expenses. Of his claims as a

poet it may be said that he filled creditably the interval

which elapsed between the death of Dante and the full

blaze of Petrarch's success. Most of his poems in honour

of Selvaggia are full of an elaborate and mechanical tone of

complaint which hardly reads like the expression of a real

love; nevertheless there are some, and especially the son-

net on her tomb (at page 192), which display feeling and

power. The finest, as well as the most interesting, of all

his pieces, is the very beautiful canzone in which he attempts

page: 20

to console Dante for the death of Beatrice. Though I have

found much fewer among Cino's poems than among Guido's

which seemed to call for translation, the collection of the

former is a larger one. Cino produced legal writings also,

of which the chief one that has survived is a Commentary

on the Statutes of Pistoia, said to have great merit, and

whose production in the short space of two years was ac-

counted an extraordinary achievement.

Having now spoken of the chief poets of this di-

vision, it remains to notice the others of whom less is

known.

Dante da Maiano (Dante being, as with Alighieri, the

short of Durante, and Maiano in the neighbourhood of

Fiesole) had attained some reputation as a poet before the

career of his great namesake began; his Sicilian lady Nina

(herself, it is said, a poetess, and not personally known

to him) going by the then unequivocal title of ‘La Nina

di Dante.’ This priority may also be inferred from the

contemptuous answer sent by him to Dante Alighieri's

dream sonnet in the Vita Nuova (see page 198). All the

writers on early Italian poetry seem to agree in specially

censuring this poet's rhymes as coarse and trivial in manner;

nevertheless, they are sometimes distinguished by a careless

force not to be despised, and even by snatches of real

beauty. Of Dante da Maiano's life no record whatever has

come down to us.

Most literary circles have their prodigal, or what in

modern phrase might be called their ‘scamp;’ and among

our Danteans, this place is indisputably filled by Cecco

Angiolieri, of Siena. Nearly all his sonnets (and no

other pieces by him have been preserved) relate either to an

unnatural hatred of his father, or to an infatuated love for

the daughter of a shoemaker, a certain married Becchina.

It would appear that Cecco was probably enamoured of her

before her marriage as well as afterwards, and we may sur-

mise that his rancour against his father may have been partly

dependent, in the first instance, on the disagreements arising

page: 21

from such a connection. However, from an amusing and

lifelike story in the Decameron (Gior. IX. Nov. 4.) we learn

that on one occasion Cecco's father paid him six months'

allowance in advance, in order that he might proceed to the

Marca d'Ancona and join the suite of a Papal Legate who

was his patron; which looks, after all, as if the father had

some care of his graceless son. The story goes on to relate

how Cecco (whom Boccaccio describes as a handsome and

well-bred man) was induced to take with him as his servant

a fellow-gamester with whom he had formed an intimacy

purely on account of the hatred which each of the two bore

his own father, though in other respects they had little in

common. The result was that this fellow, during the journey,

while Cecco was asleep at Buonconvento, took all his

money and lost it at the gaming-table, and afterwards

managed by an adroit trick to get possession of his horse

and clothes, leaving him nothing but his shirt. Cecco then,

ashamed to return to Siena, made his way, in a borrowed

suit and mounted on his servant's sorry hack, to Corsignano

where he had relations; and there he stayed till his father

once more (surely much to his credit) made him a remit-

tance of money. Boccaccio seems to say in conclusion that

Cecco ultimately had his revenge on the thief.

In reading many both of Cecco's love-sonnets and hate-

sonnets, it is impossible not to feel some pity for the indica-

tions they contain of self-sought poverty, unhappiness, and

natural bent to ruin. Altogether they have too much curious

individuality to allow of their being omitted here: especially

as they afford the earliest prominent example of a naturalism

without afterthought in the whole of Italian poetry. Their

humour is sometimes strong, if not well chosen; their

passion always forcible from its evident reality: nor indeed

are several among them devoid of a certain delicacy. This

quality is also to be discerned in other pieces which I have

not included as having less personal interest; but it must

be confessed that for the most part the sentiments expressed

in Cecco's poetry are either impious or licentious. Most of

page: 22

the sonnets of his which are in print are here given;* the

selections concluding with an extraordinary one in which

he proposes a sort of murderous crusade against all those

who hate their fathers. This I have placed last (exclusive

of the sonnet to Dante in exile) in order to give the writer

the benefit of the possibility that it was written last, and

really expressed a still rather blood-thirsty contrition;

belonging at best, I fear, to the content of self-indulgence

when he came to enjoy his father's inheritance. But

most likely it is to be received as the expression of impu-

dence alone, unless perhaps of hypocrisy.

Cecco Angiolieri seems to have had poetical intercourse

with Dante early as well as later in life; but even from the

little that remains, we may gather that Dante soon put an

end to any intimacy which may have existed between them.

That Cecco already poetized at the time to which the Vita

Nuova relates is evident from a date given in one of his

sonnets,—the 20th June, 1291, and from his sonnet raising

objections to the one at the close of Dante's autobiography.

When the latter was written he was probably on good

terms with the young Alighieri; but within no great while

afterwards they had discovered that they could not agree,

as is shown by a sonnet in which Cecco can find no words

bad enough for Dante, who has remonstrated with him

about Becchina.† Much later, as we may judge, he again

addresses Dante in an insulting tone, apparently while the

latter was living in exile at the court of Can Grande della

Transcribed Footnote (page 22):

* It may be mentioned (as proving how much of the poetry of

this period still remains in MS.) that Ubaldini, in his Glossary to

Barberino, published in 1640, cites as grammatical examples no

fewer than twenty-two short fragments from Cecco Angiolieri, one

of which alone is to be found among the sonnets which I have seen,

and which I believe are the only ones in print. Ubaldini quotes

them from the Strozzi MSS.

Transcribed Footnote (page 22):

† Of this sonnet I have seen two printed versions, in both of

which the text is so corrupt as to make them very contradictory in

important points; but I believe that by comparing the two I have

given its meaning correctly. (See page 213.)

page: 23

Scala. No other reason can well be assigned for saying

that he had ‘turned Lombard;’ while some of the insolent

allusions seem also to point to the time when Dante learnt

by experience ‘how bitter is another's bread and how steep

the stairs of his house.’

Why Cecco in this sonnet should describe himself as

having become a Roman, is more puzzling. Boccaccio

certainly speaks of his luckless journey to join a Papal legate,

but does not tell us whether fresh clothes and the wisdom of

experience served him in the end to become so far identified

with the Church of Rome. However, from the sonnet on his

father's death he appears (though the allusion is desperately

obscure) to have been then living at an abbey; and also,

from the one mentioned above, we may infer that he himself,

as well as Dante, was forced to sit at the tables of others:

coincidences which almost seem to afford a glimpse of the

phenomenal fact that the bosom of the Church was indeed

for a time the refuge of this shorn lamb. If so, we may

further conjecture that the wonderful crusade-sonnet was an

amende honorable then imposed on him, accompanied pro-

bably with more fleshly penance.

Though nothing indicates the time of Cecco Angiolieri's

death, I will venture to surmise that he outlived the writing

and revision of Dante's Inferno, if only by the token that he

is not found lodged in one of its meaner circles. It is easy

to feel sure that no sympathy can ever have existed for long

between Dante and a man like Cecco; however arrogantly

the latter, in his verses, might attempt to establish a likeness

and even an equality. We may accept the testimony of so

reverent a biographer as Boccaccio, that the Dante of later

years was far other than the silent and awe-struck lover of

the Vita Nuova; but he was still (as he proudly called

himself) ‘the singer of Rectitude,’ and his that ‘indignant

soul’ which made blessed the mother who had born him.*

Transcribed Footnote (page 23):

* ‘Alma sdegnosa,
Benedetta colei che in te s'incinse!’

( Inferno, C. VIII.)

page: 24

Leaving to his fate (whatever that may have been) the

Scamp of Dante's Circle, I must risk the charge of a con-

firmed taste for slang by describing Guido Orlandi as its

Bore. No other word could present him so fully. Very few

pieces of his exist besides the five I have given. In one of

these,* he rails against his political adversaries; in three,†

falls foul of his brother poets; and in the remaining one,‡

seems somewhat appeased (I think) by a judicious morsel of

flattery. I have already referred to a sonnet of his which is

said to have led to the composition of Guido Cavalcanti's

Canzone on the Nature of Love. He has another sonnet

beginning, ‘Per troppa sottiglianza il fil si rompe,’§ in which

he is certainly enjoying a fling at somebody, and I suspect at

Cavalcanti in rejoinder to the very poem which he himself

had instigated. If so, this stamps him a master-critic of the

deepest initiation. Of his life nothing is recorded; but no

wish perhaps need be felt to know much of him, as one

would probably have dropped his acquaintance. We

may be obliged to him, however, for his character of Guido

Cavalcanti (at page 154) which is boldly and vividly drawn.

Next follow three poets of whom I have given one speci-

men apiece. By Bernardo da Bologna ( page 156) no

other is known to exist, nor can anything be learnt of his

career. Gianni Alfani was a noble and distinguished

Florentine, a much graver man, it would seem, than one

could judge from this sonnet of his ( page 155 ), which belongs

rather to the school of Sir Pandarus of Troy.

Dino Compagni, the chronicler of Florence, is repre-

sented here by a sonnet addressed to Guido Cavalcanti,||

which is all the more interesting, as the same writer's his-