Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/394

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vi. OCT. 25, 1912.

The same author explains "senza legge" as meaning " non badante a veriina legge, ne divina, ne umana."

Evidence enough, all this, to exculpate any tribunal, however severe its sentence. Yet one witness Bianchi comes forward to limit (or explain away) the ugly epithet " piu laid opra " thus :

" Seppure per quest' opra laida non intendc la sua elezione creduta simoniaca, essendo egli stato esaltato pel maneggi del re francese,"

and adds, to temper further the judge's severity :

" Si not a, che Dante parla con onore di Cle- mente V. in una sua epistola ai principi e popoli italiani, che certamente e del 1310,"

explaining this apparent inconsistency of his hero by surmising that

" Dante che avea vituperate Clemente pei brutti principi del suo pontificato, potea parlarne con reverenza quattro o cinque anni dopo quando parve favorevole ad Arrigo, ed era necessario conciliar venerazione nei popoli verso le due supreme autorita del mondo, il papa e 1' im- peratore."

Villani disposes (ix. 59) of the first line of defence thus :

" Clemente V. fu upmo molto cupido di moneta, e simoniaco, che ogni beneflcio per danari s' avea in sua corte, e fu lussurioso ; che palese si dicea, che tenea per arnica la contessa di Pelagorga, bellissima donna, flgluiola del conte di Fusci."

Of Dante's curious change of front in the letter referred to by Bianchi, it can only be said that, whenever it occurred or to what- soever cause due, it in nowise cancels the poet's moral verdict as delivered in his poem.

2. Ibid., 115-/7 :

Ahi, Costantin, di quanto nial fu matre, Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote Che da te prese il primo ricco patre.

The sustained interest in and real importance of the so-called Donation of Constantine (alluded to by " quella dote ") centre less in the literary than in the historical and political values of that imaginary " gift " (c. 324) to Silvester I., the " ricco patre " of the quotation. How the document recording the grant originated is beyond my present inquiry ; it will, as of more consequence, serve that purpose merely to note that that act attributed to Constantine has been regarded as the origin and basis of the Temporal Power of the Papacy, and that Dante, believing, in common with his contemporaries, in its genuineness (he found the story in Latini's ' Tesoro,' ii. 25), yet

regarded it as " the mother of much mischief.'' He refers to it again (as also in'DeMon.,' ii. 12; hi. 10) in 'Par.' xx. 56, as

Sotto buona intension che fe mal frutto, which Mr. Tozer first explains (ad 1. 116 ut supra) as extending the grant to " the whole temporal power of the West," but, at the line from the ' Par.,' reduces it to " a part of the temporal government." This latter view is more in accordance with the actual wording of the Edict as given in ' Pat. Lat./ cxxx. 245, " our palace, the city of Rome, and the provinces of Italy." It was Boni- face VIII. who, by his Bull " Unam Sanctam," claimed universal temporal sove- reignty in 1302. Ariosto has a curiously analogous allusion (was the figure drawn from Dante ?) to this " dote " in ' Orlando Furioso,' xxxiv. 80 :

Di vari fiori ad un gran monte passa, Ch' ebbe gia buono odore, or putia forte Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) Che Cost ant ino a-1 buon Silvestro fece.

And Milton quotes the Constantinian address in his ' Reformation in England.'

The spuriousness of the so -called Donation was first exposed by Lorenzo Valla, c. 1443, in his ' De fal so credita et ementita Constantini Donatione ' (' Biographic Nouvelle Generate/ and Dollinger's ' Die Papst-fabeln des Mit- telalters,' p. 52), and nine years later by an English prelate, Bishop Reginald Pecock, in his ' Represser ' (Babington's edition,. 1860, ii. 323, among the " Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain," by the Master of the Rolls). Valla's work was re-edited,, with the Edict in Latin and French, so recently as 1879; and an early English edition (1525) lies in the B.M. Other notable assailants of its authenticity were : Cardinal Nicolaus de Cusa (1464) in his ' Catholic Concordance ' (Schard's ' Eccle- siastical Power,' 1566, iii. 608); Anto- ninus, Archbishop of Florence (1484), in his- ' Summa Historialis,' ed. 1586, i. 2; Raphael Maffei in his 'Commentarii Urbani,' 1506 r lib. xxiii. fol. 244, ed. 1511 ; Baronius r and Bellarmine. It may be added that the alleged cause of the alleged Donation Constantino's baptism and cure from leprosy by Silvester at Soracte is also discredited' by the damaging fact that the Emperor was actually baptized in 337 at Nicomedia by Eusebius, the bishop of that city.

J. B. McGovEBN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester..