Page:Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him.djvu/52

8 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 141), 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.

By this time we may conjecture as probable that Dante, in the arduous position which he then filled as chief of the nine Priori on whom the Government of