7
98 DANTE IN FLORENCE
step in his political career, which was destined
within a few years to lead him into lifelong exile
from his native city. The Guild selected by
Dante was one of the wealthiest and most
important in Florence, concerned as it was with
the costly products of the East, in which were
included not only spices and drugs, but also
pearls, precious stones, and other valuables.
Dante's choice of this particular Guild, however,
may perhaps be explained by the fact that in
those days books also were included among the
wares dealt in by apothecaries ; and further, to
this Guild were attached those who practised the
art of painting, an art which, it may be gathered,
had especial attractions for Dante, and in which,
as we have already seen,^ he was to some extent
a proficient.
A few details of Dante's public life in Florence
have been preserved in various documents in the
Florentine archives. It is recorded that on
July 6, 1295, he gave his opinion in favour or
certain proposed modifications of the "Ordinamenti
di Giustizia," ordinances against the power of the
nobles of Florence, which had been enacted a
couple of years before. On December 14 of the
same year he took part in the bi-monthly election
of Priors ; and on June 5, 1 296, he spoke in the
Council of the Hundred (" Consiglio dei Cento ").
In the spring of 1300 he went as ambassador to
1 See above, p. 89.
DANTE IN FLORENCE 99
San GemignanOj a town about ten miles from
Siena, to announce that an assembly was to be
held for the purpose of electing a new captain of
the Guelf League of Tuscany, and to invite the
citizens of San Gemignano to send representatives.
The room in the Palazzo of San Gemignano, where
Dante was received as ambassador of Florence,
and where he spoke in discharge of his office six
hundred years ago, is still preserved in much the
same condition in which it was on that occasion.
The contemporary record of the event, which,
like all similar records of that time, is in Latin,
tells how "on May 8 the General Council of the
commonwealth and people of San Gemignano
having been convoked and assembled in the
palace of the said commonwealth by the sounding
of a bell and by the voice of the crier, according
to custom, at the summons of the noble and
valiant knight, Messer Mino de' Tolomei of Siena,
the honourable Podesta of the commonwealth and
people of the said city of San Gemignano, . . . the
noble Dante Alighieri, ambassador of the common-
wealth of Florence, explained to the assembled
Council on behalf of the said commonwealth
how it was expedient at that time for all the
cities of the Tuscan League to hold a parliament
and discussion in a certain place for the election
and confirmation of a new Captain, and how further
it was expedient that the appointed syndics and
ambassadors of the said cities should assemble
loo DANTE IN FLORENCE
themselves together for the despatch of the said
busmess." It appears that Dante's mission was suc-
cessfulj for the record goes on to state that the pro-
position of the Florentine ambassador, having been
debated, was approved and ratified by the Council.
A few weeks after his return from San Gemig-
nano Dante was elected to serve as one of the
six Priors, for the two months from June 15 to
August 15, this being the highest office in the
Republic of Florence.^ " From this priorate,"
says Leonardo Bruni, "^ sprang Dante's exile from
Florence, and all the adverse fortunes of his
life, as he himself writes in one of his letters,
tlie words of which are as follows : ' All my
woes and all my misfortunes had their origin and
commencement with my unlucky election to the
priorate ; of which priorate although I was not
worthy in respect of worldly wisdom, yet in respect
of loyalty and of years I was not unworthy of it ;
inasmuch as ten years had jiassed since the battle
of Campaldino, where the Ghibelline party was
almost entirely broken and brought to an end, on
which occasion I was present, not inexperienced
in arms, and was in great fear, and afterwards
greatly exultant, by reason of the varying for-
tunes of that battle.' These are his words."
1 The only extant document relating to Dante's priorate
is the record of the confirmation on June 15, 1300, of a
sentence against three Florentines, who were the creatures
of Boniface vui. (See Del Lungo, Dal Secolo e dal Poema di
Dant:, pp. 37I-373.)
CHAPTER IV
1300-1302
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.
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 fections, according to the old chroniclers,
originated in Pistoja in a feud between two
branches of the Cancellieri, a Guelf ftu-nily 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
101
I02 DANTE IN FLORENCE
Cmcelliere's wife Bianca, the other as the
CancelHeri Neri^, or Black Cancelheri. A strong
i'eehng of rivahy 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 Avith 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 up-
roar. 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
DANTE IN FLORENCE 103
this measure only led to the hitvoduction of the
feud among the Florentmes 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,! 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,
hy 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
1 See above, pp. 79-82.
I04 DANTE IN FLORENCE
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. Foi*, 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
Avho 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 angiy
and harsh deeds, at first between young men,
and afterwax'ds between their elders, the city of
Florence at last was everywhere in a state of
ferment and disturbance."
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
DANTE IN FLORENCE 105
following incident related by a contemporary
chronicler : ^ —
"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. Where-
from 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
^ Dino CoiTipagni, bk. i. ch. zo.
io6 DANTE IN FLORENCE
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
DANTE IN FLORENCE 107
reason of the nobility of her brave knights and
of her free })eople, 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 noAv 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 Fiero, 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
io8 DANTE IN FLORENCE
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.
" x\nd the Cerchi and Donati were neighbours
in Florence and in the country, and what with the
boorish temper of the one house and the jealousy
of the other, there sprang up between them a
bitter scorn, which was greatly inflamed by the ill
seed of the Black and White parties introduced
from Pistoja, for the Cerchi were the heads of
the Whites in Florence, and the Donati were the
heads of the Blacks. And by the said two parties
all the city of Florence and her territory was
divided and infected. For which cause the Guelf
party, fearing lest these divisions should turn to
the advantage of the Ghibellines, sent to Pope
Boniface to ask him to heal them. Wlierefore
the Pope sent for M. Vieri de' Cerchi, and when
he was come into his presence, besought him
to make peace with M. Corso Donati and his
party, and to submit their differences to him,
promising to advance him and his friends to a
great position, and offering him any spiritual
favours he might ask. M. ^ ieri, although in
other matters he was a prudent knight, in this
matter showed little wisdom, but was obstinate
and touchy, and would do nothing of what the
Pope asked him, saying that he had no quarrel
DANTE IN FLORENCE 109
v'ith any man ; and so he returned to Florence,
and left the Pope very Avrathful against him and
his party.
" Not long after this it happened that certain ot
each party were riding on horseback through the
city, ai-med and on the alert, young men of the
Cerchi, with some of the Adimari, and others, to
the number of more than thirty horsemen, and
young men of the Donati, with some of the
Pazzi, and others of their following ; and it being
the evening of May Day in this year 1300, as
they were looking on at a dance of ladies which
was being held in the Piazza of Santa Trinita,
one party began to provoke the other, and to
push their horses one against the other, whence
there arose a great scuffle and uproar, and several
were wounded, and by ill-luck Ricoverino, son of
M. Ricovero de' Cerchi, had his nose cut from off
his face ; and by reason of the scuffl.e that evening
the whole city Avas in alarm and under arms.
" And this was the beginning of the dissensiofis
and divisions in the city of Florence and in the
Guelf party, wherefrom ensued much evil and
great danger to the Guelf party and to the
Ghibellines, and to all the city of Florence,
and to the whole of Italy also. And in like
manner as the death of M. Buondelmonte
was the beginning of the Guelf and Ghibelline
parties in Florence, so was this the beginning
no DANTE IN FLORENCE
of the great ruin of the Guelf party and of our
city." 1
In consequence of the repeated disturbances
caused by the quarrels between the Blacks and
the Whites, during Dante's priorate it was
decided to banish from Florence the leaders of
both parties, in the hope of restoi'ing the city
to peace and quiet. Among the leaders of the
Whites was the })oet, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante's
earliest friend. It thus came about that in the
impartial exercise of his office Dante was instru-
inental in sending his dearest friend into exile,
and, as it proved, to his death ; for, though the
exiles were recalled after a few weeks, Guido
never recovered from the effects of the malarious
climate of Sarzana in Lunigiana, to which he had
been banished, and died in Floi*ence at the end
of August in the same year (1300).'-
The feuds between the two factions now
reached such a height that, as we have seen, the
interference of Pope Boniface was invoked, and
at this tiine the Blacks were clamouring for
Charles of Valois, brother of the King of France,
1 Villani, bk. viii. ch. 39.
- From Guide's last poem, written at Sarzana during his
exile, it is evident that he never expected to return. If
certain expressions in this poem are to be taken literally, it
would appear that Guido already felt the hand of death
ujjon him.
DANTE IN FLORENCE in
to come to Florence as the Pope's representative.
The Whites, on the other hand, to which faction
Dante himself belonged, were bitterly opposed
both to Bonifece and to Charles of Valois.
In April of the next year (loOl), in the midst
of these troubles, Dante was entrusted with the
charge of superintending the works on the street
of San Procolo, which were intended to facilitate
the bringing of troops from the outside districts
into the city. On June 19 in this year Dante
voted in the Council of the Hundred against the
proposal to supply a contingent of a hundred
soldiers to serve with the Papal forces, on the
requisition of Pope Boniface ; — " Dante Alighieri,"
the record runs, "advised that in the matter of
furnishing assistance to the Pope, nothing should
be done." He recorded his vote on various
matters several times in one or other of the
Councils dui'ing the month of September, the last
of which mention is preserved being on September
28. In the following October, in order to protest
against the Papal policy, which aimed at the
virtual subjection of Florence, and if possible to
avert the coming of Charles of Valois, the Whites
sent an embassy to Rome, of which Dante was a
member. But while Dante was still absent at
Rome, the Pope's "peacemaker" Charles arrived
in Florence, which he entered on All Saints' Day
{^November 1, 1301), his entrance having been
112 DANTE IN FLORENCE
unopposed^ on the faith of his promise to hold tlie
balance between the two parties, and to maintain
peace. No sooner, however, had he obtained
command of the city, than he treacherously
espoused the cause of the Blacks, armed his
followers, and threw the whole of Florence into
confusion. In the midst of the panic Corso
Donati, one of the exiled leaders of the Blacks,
made his way into the city, broke open the
prisons and released the prisoners, who, together
with his own adherents, attacked and pillaged
the houses of the Whites during five days,
Charles of Valois meanwhile, in spite of his
promises, making no attempt to interfere.
The Blacks having thus gained the upper hand
in Florence began Avithout delay to strengthen
themselves by getting rid of their opponents.
On January 27, 1302, the Podesta, Cante de'
Gabrielli of Gubbio, pronounced a sentence
against Dante and four other Whites, who had
been summoned before the Podesta and had
failed to appear. The charge against them Avas
the infamous one of "barratry," that is, of fraud
and corrupt practices in office, including the
extortion of money and the making of illicit
gains. They were further charged with having
conspired against the Pope, against the admission
into the city of his representative, Charles of
Valois, and against the peace of the city of
DANTE IN FLORENCE 113
Florence and of the Guelf party. The penalty
was a fine of five thousand florins, and the restitu-
tion of the sums illegally exacted ; payment was
to be made within three days of the promulgation
of the sentence, in default of which all their
goods were to be forfeited and destroyed. In
addition to the fine, the delmquents were
sentenced to banishment from Tuscany for two
years, and to perpetual deprivation from office in
the commonwealth of Florence, their names to
that end being recorded in the book of the
Statutes of the People, as peculators and
malversators in office.
This sentence ha\ang been disregarded, on
March 10 in the same year a second severer
sentence was pronounced against Dante and the
others (with whom ten more were now included),
condemning them to be burned alive ^ should
they ever be caught : " if any of the aforesaid
at any time should come into the hands of the
said Commonwealth, such an one shall be burned
with fire so that he die."
That Dante was entirely innocent of the charge
of corruption brought against him there can hardly
be the smallest doubt. It was merely a base
^ That burning alive was no uncommon punishment in
those days, as in later times, is evident from the fact that in
an old Sienese inventory occurs the entry " due pezzi di
catena da ardere huomini."
8
114 DANTE IN FLORENCE
device on the part of his enemies within the city
to disqiiahfy him and the rest of the Whites from
taking any farther part in the government of
Florence. None of his early biographers believes
in his guilt, while his contemporary and fellow-
citizen, the chronicler, Giovanni Villani, who be-
longed to the opposite party, states frankly that
he was driven into exile for no other fault than
that of being an adherent of the Whites. " The
said Dante," he says, " was one of the chief
magistrates of our city, and was of the White
party, and a Guelf withal ; and on that account,
without any other fault, with the said White party
he was driven out and banished from Florence." ^
1 Villani, bk. ix. ch. 136.
Q
<
U
PART III
DANTE IN EXILE
CHAPTER I
1302-1321
Wanderings — Dante's fellow-exiles — Henry vu. in Italy — His
death — Fresh sentence against Dante — His retirement
to Ravenna — Death and burial.
NEVER again after the sentence of banish-
ment pronounced against him by Cante
de' Gabrielli did Dante set foot within the walls
of his native city. The rest of his lifC;, nearly
twenty years^ was spent in exile^ and for the most
part in poverty, such as is foretold to him by his
ancestor Cacciaguida in the Heaven of Mars : —
" Thou shalt leave every thing beloved most
dearly ; and this is the shaft which the bow of
exile first lets fly. Thou shalt prove how salt
the taste is of another's bread, and how hard
115
£i6 DANTE IN EXILE
a path it is to go down and up another's
stairs." ^
In a passage at the beginning of the Convivio
Dante gives a pathetic account of the miseries
and mortifications he endured during his wander-
ings as an exile. "Alas," he says, "would it had
pleased the Dispenser of the Universe that I
should never have had to make excuses for my-
self ; that neither others had sinned against me,
nor I had suffered this punishment unjustly, the
punishment I say of exile and of poverty ! Since
it was the pleasure of the citizens of the fairest
and most renowned daughter of Rome, Florence,
to cast me out from her most sweet bosom
(wherein I was born and brought up to the
climax of my life, and wherein I long with all my
heart, with their good leave, to repose my wearied
spirit, and to end the days allotted to me),
wandering as a stranger through almost every
region to which our language reaches, I have
gone about as a beggar, showing against my will
the wound of fortune, which is often wont to be
imputed unjustly to the fault of him who is
stricken. Verily I have been as a ship without
1 Paradiso, xvii. 55-60. It is most natural to suppose that
among the " things beloved most dearly " left behind in
Florence Dante intended to include his wife. But this is
not admitted by those who hold that Dante's marriage was
an unhappy one.
DANTE IN EXILE 117