Page:The National Idea in Italian Literature.djvu/17

 of her holy city, her dukes, marquesses, counts, and peoples," and subscribes himself "the humble Italian, Dante Alighieri, the Florentine." The respective rulers and peoples are admonished as members of one body; the writer's Italian nationality comes before his Florentine origin; the tidings of joy and hope are announced to Italy as a whole.

In the De Vulgari Eloquentia and in the Divina Commedia alike, Dante conceives of Italy as a cultural and geographical unity, from the extreme barriers of the Alps to furthest Sicily—the Alps alone being the northern boundary between the Italian and the German peoples. The cities of Istria are no less Italian than those of Lombardy and Tuscany; the eastern boundaries of Italy are indicated by the Quarnaro Gulf:—

"che Italia chiude e suoi termini bagna."

It is true that, in the Divina Commedia, we do not find any indication of a political unification of Italy by the fusion of the several states. And we cannot deny that the good tidings, which Dante announced in the letter to the princes and peoples, was the advent of a German prince, Henry of Luxemburg, to restore the power of the Empire. But the Emperor, in Dante's theory, has two closely associated missions to perform: one universal and international, the other national and Italian. The Veltro, the symbol of the ideal Emperor in the first canto of the Inferno, is not only to slay the lupa of avarice, but to be the salvation of Italy:— 5