III.

THE year 1289 was one marked in the annals of Florence and of Italy by events which are still famous, scored by the genius of Dante upon the memory of the world. It was in this year that Count Ugolino and his sons and grandsons were starved by the Pisans in their tower prison. A few months later, Francesca da Rimini was murdered by her husband. Between the dates of these two terrible events the Florentines had won the great victory of Campaldino; and thus, in this short space, the materials had been given to the poet for the two best-known and most powerful stories and for one of the most striking episodes of the "Divina Commedia.”

In the great and hard-fought battle of Campaldino Dante himself took part. "I was at first greatly afraid," he says, in a letter of which but a few sentences have been preserved,*-" but at the end I felt the greatest joy,-according to the various chances of the battle." When the victorious army returned to Florence, a splendid procession, with the clergy at its head, with the arts of the city each under its banner, and with all manner of pomp, went out to meet it. There were longcontinued feasts and rejoicings. The battle had been fought on the 11th of June, the day of St. Barnabas, and the Republic, though already engaged in magnificent works of church-building, decreed that a new church should be erected in honor of the Saint on whose day the victory had been won.

A little later in that summer, Dante was one of a troop of Florentines who joined the forces of Lucca in levying war upon the Pisan territory. The stronghold of Caprona was taken, and Dante was present at its capture; for he says, *See Lionardo Aretino's Vita di Dante.

(Inferno, xxi. 94-96,) "I saw the footsoldiers, who, having made terms, came out from Caprona, afraid when they beheld themselves among so many enemies."*

Thus, during a great part of the summer of 1289, Dante was in active service as a soldier. He was no lovesick idler, no mere home-keeping writer of verses, but was already taking his part in the affairs of the state which he was afterwards to be called on for a time to assist in governing, and he was laying up those stores of experience which were to serve as the material out of which his vivifying imagination was to form the great national poem of Italy. But of this active life, of these personal engagements, of these terrible events which took such strong possession of his soul, there is no word, no suggestion even, in the book of his "New Life." In it there is no echo, however faint, of those storms of public violence and private passion which broke dark over Italy. In the midst of the tumults which sprang from the jealousies of rival states, from the internal discords of cities, from the divisions of parties, from the bitterness of domestic quarrels, this little book is full of tenderness and peace, and tells its story of love as if the world were the abode of tranquillity. No external excitements could break into the inner chambers of Dante's heart to displace the love that dwelt within them. The contrast between the purity and the serenity of the "Vita Nuova" and the coarseness and cruelty of the deeds that were going on while it was being

*Landino, and most of the commentators after him, state that Dante refers in this passage to the fear of the garrison taken in the place when it was recaptured the next year by the Pisans. But as Florence and Pisa continued at desperate enmity, Dante could hardly have witnessed this latter scene.

written is complete. Every man in some sort leads a double life,—one real and his own, the other seeming and the world's, but with few is the separation so entire as it was with Dante.

But in these troubled times the "New Life" was drawing to its close. The spring of 1290 had come, and the poet, now twenty-five years old, sixteen years having passed since he first beheld Beatrice, was engaged in writing a poem to tell what effect the virtue of his lady wrought upon him. He had written but the following portion when it was broken off, never to be resumed :

"So long hath Love retained me at his hest, And to his sway hath so accustomed me, That as at first he cruel used to be,

So in my heart he now doth sweetly rest. Thus when by him my strength is dispossessed,

So that the spirits seem away to flee,
My frail soul feels such sweetness verily,
That with it pallor doth my face invest.
Then Love o'er me such mastery doth seize,
He makes my sighs in words to take their
way,

And they unto my lady go to pray
That she to give me further grace would

"And although it might give pleasure, were I now to tell somewhat of her departure from us, it is not my intention to treat of it here for three reasons. The first is, that it is no part of the present design, as may be seen in the proem of this little book. The second is, that, supposing it were so, my pen would not be sufficient to treat of it in a fitting manner. The third is, that, supposing both the one and the other, it would not be becoming in me to treat of it, since, in doing so, I should be obliged to praise myself, a thing altogether blameworthy in whosoever does it, and therefore I leave this subject to some other nar

rator.

-

"Nevertheless, since in what precedes there has been occasion to make frequent mention of the number nine,* and ap

lady, "who of every good is the true gate." -"If thou extinguishest the light of those beautiful eyes, which were wont to be so sweet a guide to mine, I see that thou desirest my death."

"O Death, delay not mercy, if 'tis thine!
For now I seem to see the heavens ope,
And Angels of the Lord descending here,
Intent to bear away the holy soul

Of her whose honor there above is sung."

*In the earlier part of the Vita Nuova there are many references to this number. We translate in full the passage given above, as one of the most striking illustrations of Dante's youthful fondness for seeking for the mystical relations and inner meanings of things. The attributing such importance to the properties of the number nine, though it might at first view seem puerile and an indication of poverty of feeling, was a portion of the superstitious belief of the age, in which Dante naturally shared. The mysterious properties of numbers were a subject of serious study, and were connected with various branches of science and of life.

"Themistius vero, et Boethius, et Averrois Babylonius, cum Platone, sic numeros extollunt, ut neminem absque illis posse recte philosophari putent. Loquuntur autem de numero rationali et formali, non de materiali, sensibili, sive vocali numero mercatorum. . . Sed intendunt ad proportionem ex illo resultantem, quem numerum naturalem et formalem et rationalem vocant; ex quo magna sacra. menta emanant, tam in naturalibus quam divinis atque cœlestibus. . . . . In numeris

parently not without reason, and since in her departure this number appeared to have a large place, it is fitting to say something on this point, seeing that it seems to belong to our design. Wherefore I will first tell how it had place in her departure, and then I will assign some reason why this number was so friendly to her. I say, that, according to the mode of reckoning in Italy, her most noble soul departed in the first hour of the ninth day of the month; and according to the reckoning, in Syria, she departed in the ninth month of the year, since the first month there is Tismim, which with us is October; and according to our reckoning, she departed in that year of our indiction, that is, of the years of the Lord, in which the perfect number * was completed for the ninth time in that century in which she had been set in the world; and she was of the Christians of the thirteenth century.†

"One reason why this number was so friendly to her may be this : since, according to Ptolemy and the Christian truth, there are nine heavens which move, and, according to the common astrological opinion, these heavens work effects here below according to their relative positions, this number was her friend, to the end that it might be understood that at her generation all the nine movable heavens were in most perfect conjunction.‡ This is one reason; but considering more subtilely and according to infallible truth, this number was she herself,-I speak in a similitude, and I mean as follows. The itaque magnam latere efficaciam et virtutem tam ad bonum quam ad malum, non modo splendidissimi philosophi unanimiter docent, sed etiam doctores Catholici."- Cornelii Agrippa De Occultâ Philosophia, Liber Secundus, cc. 2, 3.

number three is the root of nine, since, without any other number, multiplied by itself, it makes nine,-as we see plainly that three times three are nine. Then, if three is the factor by itself of nine, and the Author of Miracles by himself is three,-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are three and one,-this lady was accompanied by the number nine that it might be understood that she was a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the marvellous Trinity. Perhaps a more subtle person might discover some more subtile reason for this; but this is the one that I see for it, and which pleases me the best."

After thus treating of the number nine in its connection with Beatrice, Dante goes on to say, that, when this most gentle lady had gone from this world, the city appeared widowed and despoiled of every dignity; whereupon he wrote to the princes of the earth an account of its condition, beginning with the words of Jeremiah which he quoted at the entrance of this new matter. The remainder of this letter he does not give, because it was in Latin, and in this work it was his intention, from the beginning, to write only in the vulgar tongue; and such was the understanding of the friend for whom he writes, that friend being, as we may suppose, Guido Cavalcanti, whom Dante, it may be remembered, has already spoken of as the chief among his friends. Then succeeds a Canzone lamenting the death of Beatrice, which, instead of being followed by a verbal exposition, as is the case with all that have gone before, is preceded by one, in order that it may seem, as it were, desolate and like a widow at its end. And this arrangement is preserved in regard to all the remaining poems in the little volume. In this poem he says that the Eternal Sire called Beatrice to himself, because he saw that this world was not worthy of such a gentle thing; and he says of his own life, that no tongue could tell what it has

The point is here lost in a translation,factor and author being expressed in the original by one word, fattore.

been since his lady went away to heav

en.

Among the sonnets ascribed to Dante is one which, if it be his, must have been written about this time, and which, although not included in the "Vita Nuova," seems not unworthy to find a place here. Its imagery, at least, connects it with some of the sonnets in the earlier portion of the book.

"One day came Melancholy unto me,

And said,' With thee I will awhile abide '; And, as it seemed, attending at her side, Anger and Grief did bear her company. "Depart! Away!' I cried out eagerly.

Then like a Greek she unto me replied; And while she stood discoursing in her pride,

I looked, and Love approaching us I see. "In cloth of black full strangely was he clad, A little hood he wore upon his head, And down his face tears flowing fast he had.

"Poor little wretch! what ails thee?' then I said.

And he replied, 'I woful am, and sad, Sweet brother, for our lady who is dead."" About this time, Dante tells us, a person who stood to him in friendship next to his first friend, and who was of the closest relationship to his glorious lady, so that we may believe it was her brother, came to him and prayed him to write something on a lady who was dead. Dante, believing that he meant the blessed Beatrice, accordingly wrote for him a sonnet; and then, reflecting that so short a poem appeared but a poor and bare service for one who was so nearly connected with her, added to it a Canzone, and gave both to him.

As the months passed on, his grief still continued fresh, and the memory of his lady dwelt continually with him. It happened, that, "on that day which completed a year since this lady was made one of the citizens of eternal life, I was seated in a place where, remembering her, I drew an Angel upon certain tablets. And while I was drawing it, I turned my eyes, and saw at my side certain men to whom it was becoming to do honor, and who were looking at what I did; and, as was afterward told me, they had

been there now some time before I perceived them. When I saw them, I rose, and, saluting them, said, 'Another was just now with me, and on that account I was in thought.' When these persons had gone, I returned to my work, that is, to drawing figures of Angels; and while doing this, a thought came to me of saying words in rhyme, as for an anniversary poem for her, and of addressing them to those who had come to me. Then I said this sonnet, which has two beginnings :—

FIRST BEGINNING.

"Unto my mind remembering had come

'O noble soul,' they in departing said,
'To-day makes up the year since thou to
heaven didst rise.'"

The preceding passage is one of the many in the "Vita Nuova" which are of peculiar interest, as illustrating the personal tastes of Dante, and the common modes of his life. "I was drawing," he says, "the figure of an Angel"; and this statement is the more noticeable, because Giotto, the man who set painting on its modern course, was not yet old enough to have exercised any influence upon Dante.* The friendship

* In this year, 1291, Giotto was but fifteen years old, and probably a student with Cima

which afterwards existed between them had its beginning at a later period. At this time Cimabue still held the field. He often painted angels around the figures of the Virgin and her Child; and in his most famous picture, in the Church of Sta. Maria Novella, there are certain angels of which Vasari says, with truth, that, though painted in the Greek manner, they show an approach toward the modern style of drawing. These angels may well have seemed beautiful to eyes accustomed to the hard unnaturalness of earlier works. The love of Art pervaded Florence, and a nature so sensitive and so sympathetic as Dante's could not but partake of it in the fullest measure. Art was then no adjunct of sentimentalism, no encourager of idleness. It was connected with all that was most serious and all that was most delightful in life. It is difficult, indeed, to realize the delight which it gave, and the earnestness with which it was followed at this period, when it seemed, as by a miracle, to fling off the winding-sheet which had long wrapped its stiffened limbs, and to come forth with new and unexampled life.

The strength and the intelligence of Dante's love of Art are shown in many beautiful passages and allusions in the "Divina Commedia." There was something of universality, not only in his imagination, but also in his acquisitions. Of the sources of learning which were then open, there was not one which he had not visited; of the fountains of inspiration, not one out of which he had not drunk. All the arts-poetry, painting, sculpture, and music - were alike

bue. Benvenuto da Imola, who lectured publicly at Bologna on the Divina Commedia in the year 1378, reports, that, while Giotto, still a young man, was painting at Padua, Dante visited him. And Vasari says, that it was a tradition, that Giotto had painted, in a chapel at Naples, scenes out of the Apocalypse, from designs furnished him by the poet. If we may believe another tradition, which there seems indeed little reason to doubt, Giotto went to Ravenna during the last years of Dante's life, that he might spend there some time in company with his exiled friend.

dear to him. His Canzoni were written to be sung; and one of the most charming scenes in the great poem is that in which is described his meeting with his friend Casella, the musician, who sang to him one of his own Canzoni so sweetly, that "the sweetness still within me sounds."*

"Dante took great delight in music, and was an excellent draughtsman,” says Aretino, his second biographer; and Boccaccio reports, that in his youth he took great pleasure in music, and was the friend of all the best musicians and singers of his time. There is, perhaps, in the whole range of literature, no nobler homage to Art than that which is contained in the tenth and twelfth cantos of the "Purgatory," in which Dante represents the Creator himself as using its means to impress the lessons of truth upon those whose souls were being purified for the final attainment of heaven. The passages are too long for extract, and though their wonderful beauty tempts us to linger over them, we must return to the course of the story of Dante's life as it appears in the concluding pages of the "New Life."

Many months had passed since Beatrice's death, when Dante happened to be in a place which recalled the past time to him, and filled him with grief. While standing here, he raised his eyes and saw a young and beautiful lady looking out from a window compassionately upon his sad aspect. The tenderness of her look touched his heart and moved his tears. Many times afterwards he saw her, and her face was always full of compassion, and pale, so that it reminded him of the look of his own most noble lady. But at length his eyes began to

*This Canzone, to the exposition of which the third Trattato of the Convito is devoted, has been inimitably translated by the Reverend Charles T. Brooks. We believe it to be the happiest version of one of Dante's minor poems that exists in our language, and every student of the poet will recognize the success with which very great difficulties have been overcome. It appeared in the Crayon, for February, 1858.