The Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri
iiW INTEODUCTION. that he possessed a keen eye for the beauties of Nature, and could draw them in a way unsurpassed by the mere landscape poets of modem days. Previous to the time of Dante Latin was the sole language for composition known in Europe.
The vernacular languages of the time were considered beneath the notice of men of learning, and though some fugitive poetry was written by Dante's Italian predecessors, the " Divina Commedia" was the first great work composed in one of the modern languages of Europe. Dante may be considered to have created the very language in which he wrote.
When the English reader remembers that Chaucer, the father of English poetry, wrote at least half a century after the date of Dante's poem he will be surprised to find that the latter, with the exception of a few archaisms, is still the pure Tuscan of the present day. Like Minerva, that language of Poetry and Passion sprang forth in complete maturity at birth.
The historical allusions are so numerous throughout the " Divine Comedy" that it is necessary for its appreciation to recall to memory the state of the different countries of Europe at its date. Written early in the fourteenth century, Dante, for the purpose of introducing as prophecy many past events, supposes his vision to have taken place in the year 1300, when he himself was thirty-five years of age.
At that period Italy was the battle-field of the nations. Nominally under the sway of the Western Emperor, those potentates were in general too much occupied with struggles in the Germanic States to admit of their acquiring any permanent hold on Italy.
Called there frequently by their chronic struggles against the encroachments of the Papacy, the whole country became divided into the rival factions of those who supported the temporal authority and those who upheld the power of the Church — the Ghibeline and the Guelph. " The lands of Italy now swarm with the brood Of tyrants, and a new Marcellus grows Each peasant who takes up some party feud. " Purgatory," Canto VI., lines 124-6. No part of Italy, however governed, was free from those
INTRODUCTION. xxy factions. The Northern portion was split up into the petty Republics of Lombardy and Tuscany, and in each of these the strife of the rival parties was endless. The Southern portion formed the powerful kingdom of Naples, which in the middle of the twelfth century was held firmly by its line of Norman kings.
Towards the close of the century, however, the failure of heirs to William left Constantia, daughter of King Boger, as sole heiress, and thus induced the Emperor Frederic I. to obtain her in marriage for his son Henry, for which purpose she was taken by force from a convent when already arrived at middle age.
She is thus introduced in the « Paradise" :— '* This is great Constance' light, who from the rude Wind that the second blew from Suabia's plain Produced the third, and latest of the brood. " Paradise," Canto III., lines 119—21. Henry YI., the second Suabian blast, succeeded in deposing a bastard branch of the family of Boger, and joined the kingdom of Sicily to the Western Empire.
His death shortly followed, but not before his son Frederic, the last of the line^ was elected King of the Bomans while still in his infancy, and succeeded afterwards to the empire. Frederic II., famous for his determined opposition to the Popes, is placed in Hell as a heretic amongst the followers of Epicurus, who believed that there could be no separation of soul and body.
His firm and enterprising character is, however, acknowledged in the 13th Canto, where his Chancellor Pietro delle Vigne recounts his sad end and asserts his constant fidelity to his master, " che fu d'onor si degno. His whole reign was spent in a series of incursions into Italy, during which he took ruthless execution on the independent towns of Lombardy that sided with the Church.
At his death in 1252 Eccelino became the tyrant over several of these, and his excesses were so enormous that, though he died before Dante's birth, the memory of them was still vivid in the country, and he is prominent amongst the tyrants placed by the poet in the river of blood (** Hell," Canto XII.), while his sister Cuni'/za, ixvi INTRO DUCTION. who appears in " Paradise," describes him in Canto IX. as a firebrand " That to that region caused sore miseries. "Paradise," Canto IX., line 30. Frederic IL left the kingdom of Sicily to his son Conrad, under the regency of his bastard son Manfred.
The latter, who inherited his father's warlike spirit, succeeded in winning the goodwill of the nation, and after the death of Conrad became king, in spite of the armed opposition of successive Popes, who refused the investiture to one who employed Saracens in his army.
They consequently supported Curradino, the infant son of Conrad, until Urban IV., a Frenchman, called in the aid of the French prince, Charles of Anjou, to whom he offered the Sicilian crown. Manfred had strengthened himself by marrying his daughter Constance to Peter of Arragon, and her sons eyentually ruled the island of Sicily, then separated from Naples, and the kingdom of Arragon.
The advent of Charles of Anjou into Italy cost Manfred his kingdom and his life. Charles, having been invested by Clement IV., who had succeeded Urban in the Papacy, advanced rapidly with his forces, and was met by Manfred near the town of Benevent. In the terrible defeat which followed, A.D. 1266, Manfred, determined not to survive the loss of his kingdom, and throwing himself into the thickest of the fight, fell sword in hand.
His body was not discovered amongst the slain, in spite of a close search, until the third day, so terrible had been the slaughter, and then on the injunction of the Papal Legate the recusant to the Church was denied a Christian burial, and his body was thrown into a hole by the bridge of Benevent, over which the French, in admiration of his bravery, raised a soldier's monument, each man dropping a stone upon his grave.
But the anger of the Church was not even then satisfied. The remains of Manfred were disinterred and carried like those of a dog beyond the kingdom, being thrown into the stream of the Verde, which forms the north-east boundary of the Neapolitan State. These circumstances of his death are described in a beautiful passage
iiW INTEODUCTION. that he possessed a keen eye for the beauties of Nature, and could draw them in a way unsurpassed by the mere landscape poets of modem days. Previous to the time of Dante Latin was the sole language for composition known in Europe.
The vernacular languages of the time were considered beneath the notice of men of learning, and though some fugitive poetry was written by Dante's Italian predecessors, the " Divina Commedia" was the first great work composed in one of the modern languages of Europe. Dante may be considered to have created the very language in which he wrote.
When the English reader remembers that Chaucer, the father of English poetry, wrote at least half a century after the date of Dante's poem he will be surprised to find that the latter, with the exception of a few archaisms, is still the pure Tuscan of the present day. Like Minerva, that language of Poetry and Passion sprang forth in complete maturity at birth.
The historical allusions are so numerous throughout the " Divine Comedy" that it is necessary for its appreciation to recall to memory the state of the different countries of Europe at its date. Written early in the fourteenth century, Dante, for the purpose of introducing as prophecy many past events, supposes his vision to have taken place in the year 1300, when he himself was thirty-five years of age.
At that period Italy was the battle-field of the nations. Nominally under the sway of the Western Emperor, those potentates were in general too much occupied with struggles in the Germanic States to admit of their acquiring any permanent hold on Italy.
Called there frequently by their chronic struggles against the encroachments of the Papacy, the whole country became divided into the rival factions of those who supported the temporal authority and those who upheld the power of the Church — the Ghibeline and the Guelph. " The lands of Italy now swarm with the brood Of tyrants, and a new Marcellus grows Each peasant who takes up some party feud. " Purgatory," Canto VI., lines 124-6. No part of Italy, however governed, was free from those
INTRODUCTION. xxy factions. The Northern portion was split up into the petty Republics of Lombardy and Tuscany, and in each of these the strife of the rival parties was endless. The Southern portion formed the powerful kingdom of Naples, which in the middle of the twelfth century was held firmly by its line of Norman kings.
Towards the close of the century, however, the failure of heirs to William left Constantia, daughter of King Boger, as sole heiress, and thus induced the Emperor Frederic I. to obtain her in marriage for his son Henry, for which purpose she was taken by force from a convent when already arrived at middle age.
She is thus introduced in the « Paradise" :— '* This is great Constance' light, who from the rude Wind that the second blew from Suabia's plain Produced the third, and latest of the brood. " Paradise," Canto III., lines 119—21. Henry YI., the second Suabian blast, succeeded in deposing a bastard branch of the family of Boger, and joined the kingdom of Sicily to the Western Empire.
His death shortly followed, but not before his son Frederic, the last of the line^ was elected King of the Bomans while still in his infancy, and succeeded afterwards to the empire. Frederic II., famous for his determined opposition to the Popes, is placed in Hell as a heretic amongst the followers of Epicurus, who believed that there could be no separation of soul and body.
His firm and enterprising character is, however, acknowledged in the 13th Canto, where his Chancellor Pietro delle Vigne recounts his sad end and asserts his constant fidelity to his master, " che fu d'onor si degno. His whole reign was spent in a series of incursions into Italy, during which he took ruthless execution on the independent towns of Lombardy that sided with the Church.
At his death in 1252 Eccelino became the tyrant over several of these, and his excesses were so enormous that, though he died before Dante's birth, the memory of them was still vivid in the country, and he is prominent amongst the tyrants placed by the poet in the river of blood (** Hell," Canto XII.), while his sister Cuni'/za, ixvi INTRO DUCTION. who appears in " Paradise," describes him in Canto IX. as a firebrand " That to that region caused sore miseries. "Paradise," Canto IX., line 30. Frederic IL left the kingdom of Sicily to his son Conrad, under the regency of his bastard son Manfred.
The latter, who inherited his father's warlike spirit, succeeded in winning the goodwill of the nation, and after the death of Conrad became king, in spite of the armed opposition of successive Popes, who refused the investiture to one who employed Saracens in his army.
They consequently supported Curradino, the infant son of Conrad, until Urban IV., a Frenchman, called in the aid of the French prince, Charles of Anjou, to whom he offered the Sicilian crown. Manfred had strengthened himself by marrying his daughter Constance to Peter of Arragon, and her sons eyentually ruled the island of Sicily, then separated from Naples, and the kingdom of Arragon.
The advent of Charles of Anjou into Italy cost Manfred his kingdom and his life. Charles, having been invested by Clement IV., who had succeeded Urban in the Papacy, advanced rapidly with his forces, and was met by Manfred near the town of Benevent. In the terrible defeat which followed, A.D. 1266, Manfred, determined not to survive the loss of his kingdom, and throwing himself into the thickest of the fight, fell sword in hand.
His body was not discovered amongst the slain, in spite of a close search, until the third day, so terrible had been the slaughter, and then on the injunction of the Papal Legate the recusant to the Church was denied a Christian burial, and his body was thrown into a hole by the bridge of Benevent, over which the French, in admiration of his bravery, raised a soldier's monument, each man dropping a stone upon his grave.
But the anger of the Church was not even then satisfied. The remains of Manfred were disinterred and carried like those of a dog beyond the kingdom, being thrown into the stream of the Verde, which forms the north-east boundary of the Neapolitan State. These circumstances of his death are described in a beautiful passage
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