Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/846

Rh DANTE gratitude and affection, but whose gross vices he does not hesitate to brand with infamy, Giovanni Villani has left us a graphic picture: &quot; He was a great philosopher, and a consummate master of rhetoric, not only in knowing how to speak well, but how to write well. He it was who explained the rhetoric of Tully and made the good and useful book called Tesoro, and the Tesoretto and the Chiave del Tesoro, and other works in philosophy and of vices and virtues, and he was secretary of our commune. He was a worldly man ; but we have made mention of him because he both began and directed the growth of the Florentines, both in making them ready in speaking well and in knowing how to guide and direct our republic according to the rules of politics.&quot; Under this guidance Dante became master of all the science of his age at a time when it was not /impossible to know all that could be known. He was a skilful draughtsman, and tells us that on the anniversary of the death of Beatrice he drew an angel on a tablet. He Friends, was an intimate friend of Giotto, who has immortalized his youthful lineaments in the chapel of the Bargello, and who is recorded to have drawn from his friend s inspiration the allegories of Virtue and Vice which fringe the frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua. Nor was he less sensible to the delights of music. Milton had not a keener ear for the oud uplifted angel trumpets and the immortal harps of golden wires of the cherubim and seraphim ; and our English poet was proud to compare his own friendship with Henry Lawes with that between Dante and Casella, &quot; met in the milder shades of purgatory.&quot; Most dear to him of all were the companions Cino di Pistoia, Lapo Gianni, Guido Cavalcanti, and others, similarly gifted and dowered with like tastes, who lived in the lively streets of the city of the flowers, and felt with him the first warm flush of the coming renaissance. He has written no sweeter or more melodious lines than those in which he expresses the wish that he, with Guido and Lapo, might be wafted by enchantment over the sea wheresoever they might list, shielded from fortune and evil times, and living in such contentment that they should wish to live always, and that the good enchanter should bring Monna Vanna and Monna Bice and that other lady into their barque, where they should for ever discourse of love and be for ever happy. It is a wonderful thing (says Leonardo Bruni) that, though he studied without intermission, it would not have appeared to any one that he studied, from his joyous mien and youthful conversation. Like Milton he was trained in the strictest academical education which the age afforded ; but Dante lived under a wanner sun and brighter skies, and* found in the rich variety and gaiety of his early life a defence against the withering misfortunes of his later years. Milton felt too early the chill breath of Puritanism, and the serious musing on the experience of life, which saddened the verse of both poets, deepened in his case into grave and desponding melancholy. Political We must now consider the political circumstances in Hfe. which lay the activity of Dante s manhood. From 1115, the year of the death of Matilda countess of Tuscany, to 1215, Florence enjoyed a nearly uninterrupted peace. Attached to the Guelf party it remained undivided against rtself. But in 1215 a private feud between the families of Buondelmonte and Uberti introduced into the city the horrors of civil war. Villani (lib. v. cap. 38) relates how Buondelmonte de Buondelmonti, a noble youth of Florence, being engaged to marry a lady of the house of Amidei, allied himself instead to a Donati, and how Buondelmonte was attacked and killed by the Amidei and Uberti at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio, close by the pilaster which bears the image of Mars. &quot; The death of Messer Buondelmonte was the occasion and beginning of the accursed parties of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Florence.&quot; Of the seventy-two families then in Florence thirty-nine became Guelf under the leadership of the Buondelmonte and the rest Ghibelline under the Uberti. The strife of parties was for a while allayed by the war against Pisa in 1222, and the constant struggles against Siena ; but in 1248 Frederick II. sent into the city his natural son Frederick, prince of Antioch, with 1600 German knights. The Guelfs were driven away from the town, and took refuge, part in Montevarchi, part in Capraia. The Ghibellines, masters of Florence, behaved with great severity, and destroyed the towers and palaces of the Guelf nobles. At last the people became impatient. They rose in rebellion, deposed the podesta, elected in his place a captain of the people, established a more democratic constitution, and, encouraged by the death of Frederick in December 1250, recalled the exiled Guelfs. Manfred, the bastard son of Frederic, pursued the policy of his father. He stimulated the Ghibelline Uberti to rebel against their position of subjection. A rising of the vanquished party was put down by the people, in July 1258 the Ghibellines were expelled from the town, and the towers of the Uberti razed to the ground. The exiles betook themselves to the friendly city of Siena. Manfred sent them assistance. The Florentines, after vainly demanding their surrender, despatched an army against them. On September 4, 1260, was fought the great battle of Montaperti, which dyed the Arbia red, and in which the Guelfs were entirely defeated. The hand which held the banner of the republic was sundered by the sword of a traitor. For the first time in the history of Florence the Caroccio was taken. Florence lay at the rnercy of her enemies. A parliament was held at Empoli, in which the deputies of Siena, Pisa, Arezzo, and other Tuscan towns consulted on the best means of securing their new war power. They voted that the accursed Guelf city should be blotted out. But Farinata of the Uberti stood up in their midst, bold and defiant as when he stood erect among the sepulchres of hell, and said that if, from the whole number of the Florentines, he alone should remain, he would not suffer, whilst he could wield a sword, that his country should be destroyed, and that, if it were necessary to die a thousand times for her, a thousand times would lie be ready to encounter death. Help came to the Guelfs from an unexpected quarter. Clement IV., elected Pope in 1265, offered the crown of Apulia and Sicily to Charles of Anjou. The French prince, passing rapidly through Lombardy, Eomagna, and the Marches, reached Rome by way of Spoleto, was crowned on January G, 1266, and on February 23 defeated and killed Manfred at Benevento. In such a storm of conflict did Dante first see the light. In 1267 the Guelfs were recalled, but instead of settling down in peace with their opponents they summoned Charles of Anjou to vengeance and the Ghibellines were driven out. The meteor passage of Conradin gave hope to the imperial party, which was quenched when the head of the fair-haired boy fell on the scaffold at Naples. Pope after Pope tried in vain to make peace. Gregory X. placed the rebellious city under an interdict ; Nicolas III. in 1280 patched up a hollow truce. In 1282 the constitution of Florence received the final form which it retained till the collapse of freedom. From the three arti maggiori were chosen six priors, in whose hands was placed the government of the republic. They remained in office for two months, and during that time lived and shared a common table in the Public Palace. We shall see what influence this office had upon the fate of Dante. The success of the Sicilian Vespers, the vacancy of the Holy See, the death of Charles of Anjou, roused again the courage of the Ghibellines. They took possession of Arezzo, and threatened to drive out the Guelfs from Tuscany. The historian Ammirato has left us a lively