The Life of Dante

Giovanni Boccaccio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429576508
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Biographies littéraires

Published in 1990: This book tells the life story of Dante, the poet and his work.

THIS BOOK PLEASANTLY BEGINS TO RELATE THE BIRTH, THE LIFE, THE WORKS, AND THE HABITS OF THE RENOWNED FLORENTINE DANTE ALIGHIERI, THE ILLUSTRIOUS POET

I. INTRODUCTION

Solon,¹ whose bosom was famous for being a human shrine of divine wisdom, and whose highly revered laws still offer the men of our day a clear testimony of ancient justice, used to say often, according to some, that all republics move and stand on two feet like men. With mature precision, he asserted that the right foot² had to see that no act of wrongdoing would go unpunished, while the left foot had to reward every good deed. He added that, if either of these operations was hindered by vice or negligence or was less than well carried out, a republic that functioned in this manner would go lame; and if, through some catastrophe, it should be deficient in both operations, Solon would have to consider it in all certainty to be unable to stand on its feet.

Motivated as a result by this praiseworthy and obviously true opinion, many fine people in the past have honored their most prominent citizens—sometimes by deification, sometimes with marble statues, often with illustrious funeral orations and sometimes with triumphal arches or with laurel crowns, in keeping with the merits of their lives. I do not care, on the other hand, to discuss the punishments that have been inflicted on the guilty. Prospering because of these honors and punishments, Assyria, Macedonia, Greece and lastly the Roman Republic reached the ends of the Earth and touched the very stars with their fame.³ But their current-day successors—especially my Florentines—have not only badly pursued the path of these excellent exemplars of old, but have abandoned it so widely that personal ambition now possesses the rewards that belong to virtue.⁴

Therefore, it is not without great consternation of mind that I, and whoever else wishes to scrutinize this matter with a reasonable eye, see perverse and wicked men elevated to high public offices and supreme places and rewards, while good men are exiled, crushed, and humiliated. What ends God’s judgment has in store for such actions, let those consider who turn the steering-wheel of this ship,⁵ for we of the humbler class are indeed tossed around on the same stormy tide of fortune as they are, but we do not share with them in the guilt.

Although what I have just said could be verified by innumerable cases of ingratitude and by instances of obviously perverse pardons, it will more than suffice for me to focus on one case alone, so that I may ignore the general faults and concentrate on the chief object of my attention. My subject for study is not a trivial or unimportant person—for I am going to review the exile of that most famous of men, Dante Alighieri. How excellent this former citizen was (who was born of parents who were by no means obscure, and who distinguished himself by his virtue, knowledge, and good deeds) is clearly proved, and will be proved, by the great feats that he accomplished. If these feats had been achieved in the framework of a just state, they would doubtlessly have earned for him the highest rewards. But, o wicked thought! O shameful deed! O miserable example, notorious proof of ruin to come! Instead of giving him these rewards, his fellow citizens handed him an unfair and violent condemnation: perpetual exile with loss of his family goods and, if it had been possible, the sullying of his illustrious name by false accusations. Witness to these deeds is partly borne out by the footprints of his recent flight, his bones which are buried in an alien place, and his children, who are scattered in the houses of others. Even if all the other sins of Florence could be hidden from the eyes of God, Who sees all, would this one not bring down His wrath upon her?⁶ Indeed it would. I consider it proper to pass over in silence the reverse case of those who have been wrongly exalted.

Indeed if we examine matters carefully, we see that the present world has not only gone astray from the path of the past one that I have just mentioned, but it has also turned its feet completely in the opposite direction. So it seems self-evident that if we and others who live contrary to the previously mentioned principles of Solon stand on our own two feet without falling, the reason must be that the very nature of things has changed through the passage of time, as we many times see, or else that God by some miracle sustains us because of the merits of our past actions in a way that defies human insight; or perhaps in His patience, He stands waiting for our repentance. If the latter does not follow fast enough, then no one should doubt that God’s wrath, which moves slowly to achieve its vengeance, will prepare for us dreadful torments that will fully make up for its slowness in coming.

However, we should not only avoid evil deeds, even when they seem to go unpunished, but by doing good deeds, we should try hard to improve matters. Although I, with my paltry powers, am not fully fitted for the task I am undertaking, I will try to do what the city, with its magnificent resources, has not done. For I realize that I myself, however small, am a part of that very city where Dante played such a major role because of his great accomplishments, his integrity, and his virtue.⁷ For this reason, like every other citizen, I share in the general debt that is owed to his honor.⁸ I shall not express this honor with a statue or with splendid funeral rites (a custom that is no longer among us, and for which my strength would not be sufficient),⁹ but with words—even though they may not be equal to this enormous task. I do have plenty of these, and I shall use them so that other nations, whether in whole or in part, may not claim that his native land was totally ungrateful to a poet of his great stature.

I shall write in a plain and simple style, because my talents do not allow me a higher one, and in our Florentine idiom,¹⁰ so that I will not be at discord with the style that he himself employed in the majority of his works. First of all, I shall mention those things that he himself very modestly omitted from his writing: namely, his aristocratic birth, his life, his studies, and his personal habits. Then I shall discuss under one rubric all of the works that he composed, works which have made him so well-known to posterity that my own writing may make him seem more obscure than illustrious—although that is scarcely my intention or my desire. I shall welcome any corrections here or elsewhere by anyone who knows more than I do in the event that I have spoken in error. In order that I may not make such mistakes, I humbly pray that God, Who, as we all know, raised Dante up the heavenly staircase to his vision, will now help and guide my own mind and my all too faltering hand.¹¹

II. ANCESTRY, BIRTH AND EDUCATION

Florence, the noblest of all the cities of Italy, took her origin from the Romans,¹² as ancient historians and most modern chronicles declare. After a passage of time, she grew in size, being filled with so many commoners and men of distinction that she appeared to her neighboring states to be more a national power than a mere city. But eventually a change from these propitious beginnings occurred—whether by contrary fortune or ill-omened stars or the deserved merits of her citizens—in any case, after not many centuries had passed, that cruelest of the Vandal kings, Attila,¹³ who destroyed almost all of Italy, also reduced the city to ashes and ruins, after he had first massacred or scattered the majority of those citizens who were distinguished for their aristocratic births or noble deeds. It is believed that the city remained in this plight for more than three hundred years.

After this period, the Roman Empire, not without cause, was transferred from Greece to Gaul,¹⁴ and Charles the Great,¹⁵ the most merciful French king, was then elevated to imperial heights. After enduring many hardships, and being moved, I think, by the Holy Spirit, he became the supervisor of the reconstruction of the ruined city, the distributor of new dwellings and quarters, and the creator of wise laws for the new inhabitants. And even though he reduced the circumference of the walls, he had the place rebuilt and repopulated by those who stemmed from its original founders, so that it resembled Rome as far as he could make it, gathering inside the walls the few remaining descendants of the fugitives from the past.

Among the new inhabitants was an immigrant from Rome, a very noble young man from the line of the Frangipani, who was called Eliseo by everyone, and who was probably, as rumor had it, a direct descendant of the noble family of the Elisia. By chance, after he had accomplished the main objective for which he had come to the city in the first place, either because he was drawn by love of the city newly planned by him, or because of the location, which he was able to foresee as especially favored by the heavens, or because he was attracted by some other reason, he became a permanent resident there, leaving behind him a score of children who were neither few in number nor lacking in praise. These descendants then gave up the longstanding surname of their forefathers and took instead the first name of the man who had given them their beginning, calling themselves the Elisei.

From these, as time passed and as one followed another, among them was born and lived a valiant knight who was conspicuously noted for his arms, and his name was Cacciaguida. In his youth his parents gave him for a bride a young woman born to the Aldighieri family of Ferrara who was esteemed no less for her beauty and her character than for the nobility of her lineage. They lived together for many years and gave birth to many children. And although most of these received a pre-established name, as women often do, it pleased Aldighiera to honor one child with the name of her ancestors, and so she called him Aldighieri;¹⁶ later the name was corrupted as the letter “d” was dropped, becoming Alighieri. This man’s worthiness caused those who descended from him to abandon the name of Elisei and to assume the family name of Alighieri, and it remains in existence to this day. There were many other children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren until during the reign of the Emperor Frederick II,¹⁷ an Alighieri¹⁸ was born whose name was fated to become renowned, more through his son than because of himself.

When his wife was pregnant, not long before she was due to give birth, she saw in a dream¹⁹ the destiny that awaited the fruit of her womb. Although the meaning of that vision was not then understood by her or by anyone else, today, because of what has occurred, the significance of the portent is apparent to everyone. In her dream, it seemed to the gentle lady that she was sitting beneath a very tall laurel tree in a green meadow near a crystalline spring,²⁰ and there she envisioned giving birth to a male child, who, in the shortest time, feeding only on the laurel pine-nuts falling from the tree and from those already on the water of the clear spring, seemed to grow up into a shepherd who strove with all his power to take the leaves from that tree whose fruit had nurtured him. As he struggled to do that, she thought that he fell down, and when he rose again, it seemed to her that he had been transformed from a man to a peacock.²¹ This dream startled her so much that it caused her to awaken. Not much time passed when the actual delivery came and she gave birth to a son, who with the mutual consent of his father was named Dante²²—and justly so, because as will be seen as we proceed, his deeds matched his name.

This was that Dante who gave purpose to this commentary.²³ This was that Dante who was granted special grace by God in our times. This was that Dante who was the first person to prepare the way for the return of the Muses,²⁴ who had been exiled from Italy. It is his great works that lend nobility to the Florentine language, and it is because of him that the beauty of our vernacular poetry received its proper rhyme and meter. Because of him it can also justly be said that poetry was brought back to life from death. All these things, when duly considered, will show that he could not have carried any other name but that of Dante [The Giver], a most deserved reputation.

This singular glory of Italy was born in our city while the death of the already mentioned Frederick II had left the seat of the Roman Empire vacant, in the year 1265 of the saving incarnation of the King of the Universe, with Pope Urban IV occupying the chair of St. Peter.²⁵ He was received into his paternal house with joyous good fortune; I say “joyous” to describe the conditions of the world then current. I will leave aside all reference to his infancy,²⁶ however it may have been, although in it there appeared many signs of the future glory of his genius. I will say, however, that from the beginning of his childhood, having already grasped an elementary education (unlike the customs of the nobles of today), he did not abandon himself to childish pleasures and laziness, dawdling in his mother’s lap, but he gave himself and all his time in his native city to an uninterrupted study of the liberal arts,²⁷ and became remarkably expert in them.

As his mind and genius matured over the years, he did not pass on to lucrative studies,²⁸ which almost everyone is seeking today, but his admirable aspiration for perpetual glory made him scorn ephemeral wealth. He enthusiastically devoted himself to the acquisition of a complete knowledge of allegorical poetry,²⁹ always searching for interpretations of its innermost meaning. In this exercise he became very familiar with the poetry of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Statius, and all the other famous poets.³⁰ He not only enjoyed studying them, but he also struggled to imitate them with magnificent creations, as his works which we shall discuss at the proper time reveal.

He believed that poetic works are not silly, simple fables or adventures, as many incompetent fools believe they are. He argued that buried ...