Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/851

Rh Florentine friend refusing the base conditions of return from exile, one to the princes and lords of Italy to prepare them for the coming of Henry of Luxembourg, another to the Florentines reproaching them with the rejection of the emperor, and a long letter to Can Grande della Scala, containing directions for interpreting the Divina Corn- media, with especial reference to the Paradiso. Of less importance are the letters to the nephews of Count Alessandro da Romena, to the Marquis Moroello Malaspina, to Cino da Pistoia, and to Guido da Polenta. There are many other letters mentioned by early biographers which may yet. be lying hidden in Italian archives.

A treatise De Aqua et Terra has come down to us, which Dante tells us was delivered at Mantua in January (perhaps ) as a solution of the question which was being at that time much discussed whether on any place in the earth s surface water is higher than the earth. There is no doubt about its genuineness, and it affords us a valuable insight into Dante s studies and modes of thought.

We have reserved all mention of the Divina Commedia till the last. It would be useless in this place to attempt any account of the contents and scope of this wonderful poem. Those who would learn what it is without studying the poem itself could have no better guide than the Shadow of Dante by Maria Rossetti. It will be enough here to say a few words about the date of its composition. The time of the action is strictly confined to the end of and the beginning of. It is not improbable that it was commenced shortly after this date. In the Inferno, xix. 79, there is an allusion to the death of Pope Clement V., an event which occurred in. This probably marks the date of the completion of this cantica. The Purgatorio was completed before, as we learn from the Latin poem addressed to Johannes de Virgilio, which speaks of the Inferno and Purgatorio as completed, the Paradiso as yet to be written. The date of the poem is. The last cantos of the Paradiso were probably not finished until just before the poet's death.

A complete bibliography of Dante literature would require an article to itself. Of the many separate works on this subject perhaps the most complete is that in the fourth volume of the Manuele Dantesco by Professor Ferrazzi Bassano, 1871. The chief secondary authorities for the preceding biography have been the article in Erscli und Grubefs Encydopadie by Blanc, the Vita di Dante by Fraticelli, Dante Alighieri, seine Zeit, sein Leben, und seine Werke ; by Scartazzini, and the excellent treatise of Dr Theodor Paur Ueber die Quellen zur Lebensgeschichte Dante s, Gorlitz, 1862. The edition of Dante, with Italian notes by Scartazzini published by Brockhaus at Leipsic, of which only two volumes have as yet appeared, promises to supersede all others. Grave doubts have of late years been thrown on the authenticity of the chronicle of Dino Com- pagni, which has hitherto been regarded as one of the chief authorities for the life of Dante. A summing up of the evidence by W. Bernhardi, who concludes against the genuineness of the book, is to be found in Von Sybel s Historische Zeitschrift, the first number for 1877. A more copious bibliography of Dante literature is subjoined, taken mainly from Scartazzini s German work.

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1em  DANTON, (1759-1794), one of the most conspicuous actors in the decisive episodes of the first French Kevolution. He was born at Arcts-sur-Aube in 1759. His family was of respectable quality, though of very moderate means. They contrived to give him a good education, and he was launched in the career of an advocate at the Paris bar. When the Revolution broke out, it found Danton following his profession with apparent success, leading a cheerful domestic life, and nourishing his intelli gence on good books. He first appears in the revolutionary story as president of the popular club or assembly of the district in which he lived. This was the famous club of the Cordeliers, so called from the circumstance that its meetings were held in the old convent of the order of the Cordeliers, just as the Jacobins derived their name from the refectory of the convent of the Jacobin brothers. It is an odd coincidence that the old rivalries of Dominicans and Franciscans in the democratic movement inside the Catholic Church should be recalled by the names of the two factions in the democratic movement of a later century away from the church. The Cordeliers were from the first the centre of the popular principle in the French Revolution carried to its extreme point ; they were the earliest to suspect the court of being irreconcilably hostile to freedom ; and it was they who most vehemently proclaimed the need for root and branch measures. Danton s robust, energetic, and impetu ous temperament made him the natural leader in such a quarter. We find no traces of his activity in the two great insurrectionary events of 1789 the fall of the Bastille, and the forcible removal of the court from Versailles to the Tuileries. In the spring of 1790 we hear his voice urging the people to prevent the arrest of Marat. In the autumn we find him chosen to be the commander of the battalion of the national guard of his district. In the beginning of 1791 he was elected to the post of administrator of the department of Paris. This interval was for all France a barren period of doubt, fatigue, partial reaction, and hoping against hope. It was not until 1792 that Danton came into the prominence of a great revolutionary chief. In the spring of the previous year (1791) Mirabeau had died, and with him had passed away the only man who 