FOOTNOTES:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Dante Alighieri and Sibbald, James Romanes
Source notes
[1] Matilda died in 1115. The name Tessa, the contraction of Contessa, was still, long after her time, sometimes given to Florentine girls. See Perrens, Histoire de Florence, vol. i. p. 126.
[2] Whether by Matilda the great Countess is meant has been eagerly disputed, and many of the best critics—such as Witte and Scartazzini—prefer to find in her one of the ladies of the Vita Nuova. In spite of their pains it seems as if more can be said for the great Matilda than for any other. The one strong argument against her is, that while she died old, in the poem she appears as young.
[3] See note on Inferno xxx. 73.
[4] It might, perhaps, be more correct to say that to some offices the nobles were eligible, but did not elect.
[5]Inf. xiii. 75.
[6]Inf. x. 119.
[7]Inf. xxiii. 66.
[8]Inf. x. 51.
[9]Purg. vi. 144.
[10] Dante sets the Abbot among the traitors in Inferno, and says scornfully of him that his throat was cut at Florence (Inf. xxxii. 119).
[11] Villani throws doubt on the guilt of the Abbot. There were some cases of churchmen being Ghibelines, as for instance that of the Cardinal Ubaldini (Inf. x. 120). Twenty years before the Abbot’s death the General of the Franciscans had been jeered at in the streets of Florence for turning his coat and joining the Emperor. On the other hand, many civilians were to be found among the Guelfs.
[12] Manfred, says John Villani (Cronica, vi. 74 and 75), at first sent only a hundred men. Having by Farinata’s advice been filled with wine before a skirmish in which they were induced to engage, they were easily cut in pieces by the Florentines; and the royal standard was dragged in the dust. The truth of the story matters less than that it was believed in Florence.
[13] Provenzano is found by Dante in Purgatory, which he has been admitted to, in spite of his sins, because of his self-sacrificing devotion to a friend (Purg. xi. 121).
[14] For this good advice he gets a word of praise in Inferno (Inf. xvi. 42).
[15] These mercenaries, though called Germans, were of various races. There were even Greeks and Saracens among them. The mixture corresponded with the motley civilisation of Manfred’s court.
[16]Inf. xxxii. 79.
[17]Inf. x. 93.
[18] Lucera was a fortress which had been peopled with Saracens by Frederick.
[19] Manfred, Purg. iii. 112; Charles, Purg. vii. 113.
[20]Purg. xx. 67.
[21]Purg. iii. 122.
[22] For an account of the constitution and activity of the Parte Guelfa at a later period, see Perrens, Hist. de Florence, vol. iv. p. 482.
[23]Purg. xx. 68.
[24]Parad. xi. 89.
[25]Parad. xvi. 40, etc.
[26]Inf. xxix. 31.
[27]Inf. x. 42. Though Dante was descended from nobles, his rank in Florence was not that of a noble or magnate, but of a commoner.
[28] The month is indicated by Dante himself, Parad. xxii. 110. The year has recently been disputed. For 1265 we have J. Villani and the earliest biographers; and Dante’s own expression at the beginning of the Comedy is in favour of it.
[29]Inf. xxiii. 95.
[30]Inf. xix. 17; Parad. xxv. 9.
[31]Purg. xxx. 55.
[32]Inf. viii. 45, where Virgil says of Dante that blessed was she that bore him, can scarcely be regarded as an exception to this statement.
[33] In 1326, out of a population of ninety thousand, from eight to ten thousand children were being taught to read; and from five to six hundred were being taught grammar and logic in four high schools. There was not in Dante’s time, or till much later, a University in Florence. See J. Villani, xi. 94, and Burckhardt, Cultur der Renaissance, vol. i. p. 76.
[34] For an interesting account of Heresy in Florence from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, see Perrens, Hist. de Florence, vol. i. livre ii. chap. iii.
[35] It opens with Brunetto’s being lost in the forest of Roncesvalles, and there are some other features of resemblance—all on the surface—between his experience and Dante’s.
[36] G. Villani, viii. 10. Latini died in 1294. Villani gives the old scholar a very bad moral character.
[37]Inf. xv. 84.
[38] We may, I think, assume the Vita Nuova to have been published some time between 1291 and 1300; but the dates of Dante’s works are far from being ascertained.
[39] So long as even Italian critics are not agreed as to whether the title means New Life, or Youth, I suppose one is free to take his choice; and it seems most natural to regard it as referring to the new world into which the lover is transported by his passion.
[40] As, indeed, Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, expressly says was the case.