Dante Alighieri (13 page)

    
⁸
See above, pp. 39, 51.

    
⁹
See above, pp. 58-9.

    
¹⁰
Vita di Dante
, ed. Macri-Leone, § 3, pp. 20-1.

    
¹¹
“Certo io non affermo queste cose a Dante essere avvenute; chè nolso” (
ed. cit
. p. 23).

    
¹²
His father and mother are referred to as “i miei generanti” in the
Convivio
(i. 13, 1. 31); and his mother is referred to in the
Inferno
(viii.45).

    
¹³
Vita di Dante
, ed. Macrì-Leone, § 3, p. 23.

    
¹⁴
Pietro's commentary, which was published by Lord Vernon at Florence in 1845, was written (in Latin) between 1340 and 1341. (See L. Rocca,
II Commento di Pietro Alighieri
, in
Di Alcuni Commenti della D
.
C
.
composti nei primi vent
'
anni dopo la morte di Dante
, 1891, pp. 343-425).

    
¹⁵
Dante's biographer, Leonardo Brum (1369-1444), says of Pietro: “Dante, among other children, had a son Pietro, who studied law, and became distinguished. By his own gifts, and as being his father's son, he attained a great position and considerable means, and settled at Verona in very good circumstances. This Messer Pietro had a son called Dante, and to this Dante was born a son Leonardo, who is still living and has several children. Not long ago this Leonardo came to Florence, with other young men of Verona, well-to-do and much respected, and came to visit me as a friend to the memory of his great-grandfather Dante. And I showed him the house of Dante and of his ancestors, and gave him information about many things of which be was ignorant, owing to the fact that he and his family had been estranged from the home of their fathers”. (
Vita di Dante
, ad fin.).

    
Dante, the father of this Leonardo, died in 1428. Leonardo had a son Pietro (d. 1476), who had a son Dante (d. 1515), who had three sons, the youngest of whom, Francesco, died 12 August, 1563, and was buried at Verona. With Francesco the male descendants of Dante Alighieri came to an end (see Genealogical Table, in G. L. Passerini,
La Famiglia Alighieri
),

    
¹⁶
Jacopo's commentary (in Italian) on the
Inferno
, which was published by Lord Vernon at Florence in 1848, was written certainly before 1333, and probably before 1325 (see L. Rocca,
Chiose attribuite a Jacopo di Dante
, in
op. cit
. pp. 1-42). On the question as to whether Jacopo wrote a commentary on the whole poem, see F. P. Luiso,
Chiose di Dante le quali fece el figluolo co le sue mani
, 1904; and
Tra Chiose e Commenti Antichi alla D.C
, 1903. Jacopo also wrote (in 1322) a
Capitolo
(a summary) in
terza rima
on the
Commedia
(see Rocca,
op. cit
. p. 33 ff.).

    
¹⁷
See Del Lungo,
Dell
'
Esilio di Dante
, pp. 18, 161-2.

    
¹⁸
See
Giornale Dantesco
, vii. 339-40. It has been conjectured, with not much plausibility, that Beatrice may have been identical with Antonia, who may have taken the name of Beatrice on becoming a nun (see
Giornale Dantesco
, viii. 470-1).

    
¹⁹
Purgatorio
, xxx. 127-38.

    
²⁰
Purgatorio
, xxiv. 37-45 (see below, p. 97).

    
²¹
See Fraticelli,
Vita di Dante
, pp. 112-13.

    
²²
See above, p. 65.

    
²³
See D' Ancona e Bacci,
Manuale della Letteratura Italiana
, i. 185 ff.

    
²⁴
Or supposed to be recorded, for M. Barbi has shown that the . . .
herii
in the torn document, hitherto conjectured to represent
Dante Alagherii
, must almost certainly refer to some other Alighieri (see
Bullettino della Società Dantesca Italiana
, N.S. (1899), vi. 225 ff., 237).

    
²⁵
The original is printed by Fraticelli,
Vita di Dante
, pp. 138-9.

    
²⁶
The only extant document relating to Dante's priorate is the record of the confirmation on 15 June, 1300, of a sentence against three Florentines, who were the creatures of Boniface VIII. (see Del Lungo,
Dal Secolo e dal Poema di Dante
, pp. 371-3).

    
²⁷
Vita di Dante
, ed. Brunone Bianchi, 1883, p. xvii.

    
Blacks and Whites in Pistoja—In Florence—Cerchi and Donati—May Day, 1300—Dante in office—Embassy to Rome—Charles of Valois in Florence—Triumph of the Blacks—Condemnation and Exile of Dante—His Possessions and Debts.

F
LORENCE at the time of Dante's election to the priorate was in a dangerous state of ferment owing to the recent introduction from Pistoja of the factions of the Blacks and the Whites, which divided the Guelf party in Florence into two opposite camps, and were the occasion of frequent brawls and bloodshed in the streets.

    
These factions, according to the old chroniclers, originated in Pistoja in a feud between two branches of the Cancellieri, a Guelf family of that city, who were descended from the same sire, one Ser Cancelliere, but by different mothers. These two branches adopted distinctive names, the one being known as the Cancellieri Bianchi, or White Cancellieri, as being descended from Cancelliere's wife Bianca, the other as the Cancellieri Neri, or Black Cancellieri. A strong feeling of rivalry existed between the two branches, which at last, as the story is told, on the occasion of a trifling quarrel, broke out into actual hostilities.

    
It appears that one day the father of a certain Focaccia, who belonged to the White Cancellieri, chastised one of his nephews for assaulting another boy with a snowball.
The nephew in revenge a few days after struck his uncle, for which he was sent by his father to receive such punishment as the uncle should see fit to administer. The latter, however, laughed the matter off, and sent the boy away with a kiss. But Focaccia, catching his cousin as he came out of the house, dragged him into the stable and cut off his hand on the manger, and then, not content with this, sought out the boy's father, his own uncle, and murdered him. This atrocious crime naturally led to reprisals, and in a short time the whole city was in an uproar. One half the citizens sided with the Whites, the other half with the Blacks, so that Pistoja was reduced to a state of civil war. To put an end to this state of things the Florentines intervened ; and in the hope of extinguishing the feud they secured the leaders of both factions, and imprisoned them in Florence. Unhappily this measure only led to the introduction of the feud among the Florentines themselves. In Florence also there happened to be two rival families—the Donati, who were of ancient lineage, but in reduced circumstances, and the Cerchi, who were wealthy upstarts. The former, headed by the brave Corso Donati, one of the Guelf leaders at the battle of Campaldino, took the part of the Black Cancellieri, while the Cerchi, headed by Vieri de' Cerchi, who had also distinguished himself on the Guelf side at Campaldino,
¹
took the part of the White Cancellieri. Thus it came about that through the private enmities of two Pistojan and two Florentine houses, Florence, which was ostensibly Guelf at the time, became divided into Black Guelfs and White Guelfs. These two divisions, which had originally been wholly unpolitical, by degrees became respectively pure Guelfs and disaffected Guelfs, the latter, the White Guelfs, eventually throwing in their lot with the Ghibellines.

    
“When the city of Pistoja,” says Leonardo Bruni, “was divided into factions by reason of this wicked quarrel, it seemed good to the Florentines, in order to put an end to the trouble, to summon the leaders of both factions to Florence, so that they might not create any further disturbance in Pistoja. But this remedy was of such sort that it did more harm to the Florentines by drawing the plague upon themselves, than good to the Pistojans by ridding them of the ringleaders in the mischief. For, inasmuch as the latter had many friends and relations in Florence, through their partisanship the conflagration immediately burst out with greater fury in this city than it had done in Pistoja before they quitted it. And as the matter came to be discussed everywhere, in public and in private, the ill seed wondrous quickly took root, and the whole city was divided, so that there was hardly a family, noble or plebeian, but was divided against itself; nor was there a private individual of any consequence who did not join one side or the other. And the division spread even between own brothers, one holding with one faction, and one with the other. And after the dispute had lasted for several months, and disagreements became more frequent, not only in words but also in angry and harsh deeds, at first between young men, and afterwards between their elders, the city of Florence at last was everywhere in a state of ferment and disturbance.”
²

    
The degree of jealousy and suspicion with which the Cerchi and Donati, the respective champions of the Whites and Blacks in Florence, regarded each other may be gathered from the following incident related by a contemporary chronicler:
³
—

    
“It happened that there was a family who called themselves
Cerchi, men of low estate, but good merchants and of great wealth; and they dressed richly, and kept many servants and horses, and made a fine show; and some of them bought the palace of the Conti Guidi, which was close to the houses of the Donati, who were more ancient of blood but not so rich; wherefore seeing the Cerchi rise to great position, and that they had walled and enlarged the Palace, and kept great state, the Donati began to have a great hatred against them. Wherefrom great scandal and peril ensued to private persons and to the city at large.

    
“Now it came to pass one day that many people of the city were gathered together, for the burying of a dead lady, on the Piazza de' Frescobaldi; and it being the custom of the city that at such gatherings the citizens should sit below on rush-bottomed stools, and the knights and doctors above upon benches, the Donati and the Cerchi, such of them as were not knights, being seated on the ground, opposite to each other, one of them, either for the purpose of adjusting his dress, or for some other reason, rose to his feet. Whereupon those of the opposite party likewise rose up, suspecting somewhat, and laid their hands on their swords ; and the others doing the same, they began to make a brawl. But the rest of those who were present interfered between them, and would not let them come to blows. The disturbance, however, was not so completely quelled but that a large crowd collected at the residence of the Cerchi, and straightway at a word would have made for the Donati, had not some of the Cerchi forbidden it.”

    
The commencement of actual hostilities in Florence between the Blacks and the Whites was due to a street brawl on the evening of May Day in the year 1300—the year of Dante's priorate—between some of these same
Cerchi and Donati on the occasion of a dance in the Piazza of Santa Trinita. Two parties of young men on horseback belonging to either side, while looking on, began hustling each other. This soon led to serious fighting, during which one of the Cerchi had his nose cut off.

    
“At this time (in the year of Christ 1300),” says Villani, “our city of Florence was in the greatest and happiest state it had ever been in since it was rebuilt, or even before, as well in size and power as in the number of her people, for there were more than thirty thousand citizens in the city, and more than seventy thousand fit to bear arms in the districts belonging to her territory; and by reason of the nobility of her brave knights and of her free people, as well of her great riches, she was mistress of almost the whole of Tuscany.

    
“But the sin of ingratitude, with the help of the enemy of the human race, out of this prosperity brought forth pride and corruption, whereby the feasting and rejoicings of the Florentines were brought to an end. For up to this time they had been living in peace, in great luxury and delicacy, and with continual banquets; and every year on May Day, through nearly the whole of the city, there were gatherings and companies of men and women, with entertainments and dancing. But now it came about that through envy there arose divisions among the citizens; and the chief and greatest of these began in that quarter of strife, the quarter of Porte San Piero, between those belonging to the house of the Cerchi and those of the Donati, on the one side through envy, on the other through rudeness and ungraciousness.

    
“The head of the house of the Cerchi was M. Vieri de' Cerchi, and he and his house were men of great consequence, and powerful, with great connections, and very
wealthy merchants, for their company was one of the largest in the world; and they were touchy and uncouth, rude in their manners and harsh, after the manner of those who have risen in a short time to great power and estate. The head of the house of the Donati was M. Corso Donati, and he and his house were of gentle birth, and men of war, with no great wealth.