they roused in his mind and soul. It is only the larger outlines which can be here attempted, especially as these become visible, more or less dimly, through the veil of his own writings. Dante-or, to give the full form, Durante Alighieri Dante's Birth: May 1265. was born in Florence in the year 1265. The month was May, but the exact day is uncertain. In the Paradiso (xxii. 106-117) he tells us that he first felt the Tuscan air' under the sign of Gemini, to which he owed all his genius, 'whatsoever it may be.' In 1265 it has been calculated that the sun entered this sign on May 18, and left it on June 17. Dante's birthday therefore lies between these two dates; and the 30th of May has been suggested as being the festa of Lucia, his patron saint, who comes to his aid more than once in the Commedia.1 Of his ancestors almost nothing is known beyond what he Ancestors : Cacciaguida himself tells us. In the Heaven of Mars he meets (c. 1090-1147). his crusading forefather, Cacciaguida, and confesses that even in Paradise he could not restrain a thrill of pride for 'our poor nobility of blood.' Cacciaguida was his great-great-grandfather, who joined the Emperor, Conrad III., in the disastrous Second Crusade for which St. Bernard was responsible, was knighted by him for his noble deeds, and laid down his life for Holy Land. Dante an outline of his life: 'In your ancient Baptistery at once. My wife came to me from Val di Pado, This He gives 1 Inf. ii. 94-117; Purg. ix. 49-63. St. Bernard points out her place in the Rose of Paradise (Par. xxxii. 136-138). See also pp. 39, 40. And from her thy surname was derived. So much by good work came I into grace. Of that law, whose people doth usurp Your just possession, through the Pastor's fault. Unswathed of the deceitful world, The love of which full many a soul befouls, Cacciaguida's wife is supposed to have been one of the Alighieri of Ferrara, and it is interesting to know that it is from her Dante's surname comes.2 From the mention of Eliseo, Boccaccio asserts that he was descended from the Elisei, an ancient Roman family, but of this there is no proof. When Dante asks for further information of his ancestors, Cacciaguida declines to give it: 'Suffice it of my forbears to hear this; Who they were, and whence they hither came, It is impossible to say with any certainty the reason for this strange reticence. It may be a confession of Dante's own ignorance; but from its context it seems rather the silence of humility which befits Paradise. From other passages it appears certain that Dante believed himself to be of the ancient 1 Par. xv. 134-148. 2 The derivation of Alighieri, or Aldighieri, has exercised the ingenuity of commentators. Federn says confidently it is a German name, and most probably derived from "Aldiger," which has about the same significance as the word "Shakespeare," meaning "the ruler of the spear." Others derive it from alga, the sea-weed in which the swampy valley of the Po abounds, 3 Par, xvi, 43-45, Roman stock; but Cacciaguida refuses to encourage this pride of blood. It is probably as a warning against it that he tells him how his own son, Dante's great-grandfather, Alighiero, has been circling the Terrace of Pride on Mount Purgatory for more than a hundred years.2 The only other member of the house named is one of whom there was no temptation to be proud-a certain Geri del Bello, a first cousin of Dante's father, a quarrelsome man who stirred up strife among the Sacchetti, and was stabbed for his pains by a member of that family. In the Bolgia of the Schismatics in the Eighth Circle of Hell, Virgil saw him pointing threateningly at Dante for having left his death unavenged.3 Of his parents Dante makes no mention whatever, His Parents. except in the most indirect way. His father is said to have been a notary of Florence. He was twice married, and Dante was the son of his first wife, Bella, of whose family nothing whatever seems to be certainly known. A single line in the Commedia is her only memorial.* La Vita The great and decisive event of Dante's boyhood, Beatrice and youth, and early manhood-indeed, of his whole life Nuova. -was his love of Beatrice, narrated in his first work, the Vita Nuova. The title indicates, doubtless, the new existence into which this great passion ushered him. The story is told with a peculiar ethereal and dreamlike purity and beauty; and indeed it is 1 Inf. xv. 73-78, etc. 3 Inf. xxix. 1-36. See page 396. 2 Par. xv. 91-96. * Inf. viii. 45. Comp. Conv. i. 13, where, speaking of the benefits he had received from his native tongue, he says: this my language (Volgare) was the uniter of my parents, who spoke with it, . . . and thus was one of the causes of my being.' ... largely composed of dreams. It consists of a series of poems interpreted by a prose commentary. Norton has shown that the book is most symmetrically constructed, and falls into three divisions of ten poems each. The first (sections i.-xvi.) relates the beginning of his love and its extraordinary effects upon himself. He saw this 'youngest of the Angels for the first time when she was at the beginning, and he at the end, of their ninth year. In his eighteenth year he met her in the street, and for the first time received her salutation. It threw him into a dream of terror and of joy. Love, a lord of terrible aspect outwardly but full of joy within, appeared to him in a cloud of fire, bearing in his arms the Lady of the salutation,' asleep, and covered with a blood-red cloth. In his hand he held Dante's own heart which was all on fire, and, awaking the lady, he forced her to eat it, which she did as one in fear. Then, having waited again a space, all his joy was turned into most bitter weeping; and as he wept he gathered the lady into his arms, and it seemed to me that he went with her up towards heaven: whereby such a great anguish came upon me that my light slumber could not endure through it, but was suddenly broken.' It is obviously his first premonition of the early death of . Beatrice. The dream made him a poet: he related it in the first Sonnet of The New Life, which he sent to the famous poets of the day for their interpretation. One of the answers came in a Sonnet from Guido 2 1 See Essay On the Structure of the Vita Nuova' in Charles E. Norton's Translation of The New Life, pp. 129-134. 2 V. N. iii. The passages quoted are from Rossetti's translation. Cavalcanti, whom Dante henceforth called 'the first among his friends." To conceal his love he tells us that he used several ladies as screens, and with such unhappy success that Beatrice, hearing rumours which 'seemed to misfame him of vice,' denied him her salutation, and even mocked him at a marriage festivity. The second division of the Vita Nuova extends from section xvii. to section xxx. The refusal by Beatrice of her salutation which had hitherto been his highest bliss, made him resolve to fall back upon another beatitude which could never fail: he begins 'new matter'—materia nuova-'more noble than the foregoing.' He has spoken sufficiently of himself and his condition; he will henceforth speak only of his lady's praise. But mingling with this praise come renewed premonitions of her early death. A sickness falls upon himself, and, musing on the frail thread of his own life, the thought suddenly came: 'Of necessity it must be that the most gentle Beatrice shall some time die.' In the delirium of his sickness he has a vision of her passing to Paradise. 'And at the first, it seemed to me that I saw certain faces of women with their hair loosened, which called out to me, "Thou shalt surely die"; after the which, other terrible and unknown appearances said unto me, "Thou art dead." At length, as my phantasy held on in its wanderings, I came to be I knew not where, and to behold a throng of dishevelled ladies wonderfully sad, who kept going hither and thither weeping. 1 Rossetti in Dante and his Circle translates three of these replies: Guido Cavalcanti's (p. 131), Cino da Pistoia's (p. 183), and Dante da Maiano's (p. 198). The last tells Dante to consult a doctor for such delirium. |