30 Epistola ix. §§ 3, 4. A critical text of this letter is printed in the Bullettino della Società Dantesca Italiana, N.S. (1905), xii. 122-3, by A. della Torre, who points out that the correct reading at the beginning of § 3 is not, as hitherto usually printed, revocatio gloriosa, but revocatio generosa.
31 Vita di Dante, ed. Macrì-Leone, § 5, p. 30.
32 Among Dante’s friends and acquaintances at Ravenna the names have been preserved of Dino Perini, a young notary of Florence (see Ricci, L’ Ultimo Rifugio di Dante, pp. 99 ff.), and Fiduccio de’ Milotti, a physician of Certaldo (see Ricci, op. cit. pp. 100 ff.), who figure respectively as Meliboeus and Alphesiboeus in Dante’s Latin eclogues (see below, pp. 254-6). Another friend was Menghino Mezzano, a notary (and, apparently, later an ecclesiastic) of Ravenna, who wrote an epitaph on Dante, and whose intimacy with the poet is attested by Coluccio Salutati (see below, p. 105; and Ricci, op. cit. pp. 218 ff.). Yet another acquaintance is said to have been Bernardo Canaccio of Bologna, the author of the epitaph inscribed on Dante’s tomb (“Jura Monarchiae,” etc.) (see below, p. 105; and Ricci, op. cit. pp. 237 ff.). Besides these, Boccaccio mentions Piero di Giardino (see below, pp. 103, 119; and Ricci, op. cit. pp. 209 ff.).
33 Paradiso, xxv. 1-3.
34 Vita di Dante, ed. cit. § 6, p. 31.
35 Printed in the Oxford Dante, pp. 185-6.
36 Printed in the Oxford Dante, pp. 186-7. As to the genuineness of this poetical correspondence between Giovanni del Virgilio and Dante, see below p. 252.
37 See below, pp. 256 ff.
38 See Giornale Dantesco, iv. 126-30.
39 This is the Galeazzo who is referred to by Dante in Purgatorio, viii. 79-81, in connection with his marriage to Beatrice of Este, the widow of Nino Visconti of Pisa.
40 The Pope’s name was Jacques D’ Euse.
41 Dante refers in the Divina Commedia to the practice of witchcraft upon people by means of images made in their likeness. Speaking of the witches in Malebolge, he says “Fecer malìe con erbe e con imago” (Inf. xx. 123); upon which the Anonimo Fiorentino comments: “Puossi fare malíe per virtù di certe erbe medianti alcune parole, o per imagini di cera o d’ altro fatte in certi punti et per certo modo che, tenendo queste imagini al fuoco o ficcando loro spilletti nel capo, così pare che senta colui a cui imagine elle son fatte, come la imagine che si strugga al fuoco.”
42“Vide Bartholomee ecce istam ymaginem quam feci fieri ad de-structionem istius pape qui me persequitur, et est necessarium quod subfumigetur, et quia tu scis facere subfumigationem in talibus, volo quod tu facias subfumigationes isti ymagini cum solemnitatibus convenientibus.”
43 See below, p. 232.
44 “Galeas dixit eidem Bartholomeo: Scias quod ego feci venire ad me magistrum Dante Alegriro (sic) de Florencia pro isto eodem negocio pro quo rogo te. Cui Bartholomeus dixit: Sciatis quod multum placet michi quod ille faciat ea que petitis. Cui Bartholomeo dictus Galeas dixit: Scias Bartholomee quod pro aliqua re de mundo ego non sustinerem quod dictus Dante Alegiro (sic) in predictas poneret manum suam vel aliquid faceret nec revelarem sibi istud negocium qui daret michi mille floreni (sic) auri, quia volo quod tu facias, quia de te multum confido.”
45 Boccaccio in his comment on the opening line of the Commedia, has an interesting note as to Dante’s age at the time of his death, which proves incidentally how carefully Boccaccio made his inquiries with regard to the details of Dante’s life. “That Dante was thirty-five,” he says, “at the time when he first awakened to the error of his ways is confirmed by what was told me by a worthy man, named Ser Piero, son of M. Giardino of Ravenna, who was one of Dante’s most intimate friends and servants at Ravenna. He affirmed that he had it from Dante, while he was lying sick of the illness of which he died, that he had passed his fifty-sixth year by as many months as from the previous May to that day. And it is well known that Dante died on the fourteenth day of September in the year 1321” (Comento, i 104-5). Inasmuch as Giovanni del Virgilio and Menghino Mezzano in their epitaphs on Dante speak of his death as having taken place “septembris idibus,” some suppose that he actually died on the evening of 13 September (see Corrado Ricci, L’ Ultimo Rifugio di Dante, pp. 157-8). It is probable, however, that the exigencies of metre had more weight with these writers than considerations of scrupulous accuracy.
46 J. R. Lowell.
47 The remains of laurel leaves, no doubt the relics of the poet’s wreath, were found in the tomb when it was opened at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and again in 1865 (see below, pp. 113, 117).
48 Vita di Dante, ed. Macrì-Leone, § 6, pp. 32-3.
49 It was long supposed that these lines (Latin elegiacs, beginning: “Theologus Dantes, nullius dogmatis expers”) were inscribed on Dante’s tomb, but Corrado Ricci has shown that this was not the case (see L’ Ultimo Rifugio di Dante, pp. 252 ff.).
50 See Ricci, op. cit. p. 259.
51 Beginning: “Inclita fama cuius universum penetrat orbem”.
52 Coluccio Salutati, in a letter written from Florence on 2 October, 1399, speaks of him as “notus quondam familiaris et socius Dantis nostri,” and says that he was a close student of the Divina Commedia, on which he believed him to have written a commentary (see F. Novati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, vol. iii. p. 374).
53 Englished as follows by the English traveller, Fynes Moryson, when he was at Ravenna in 1594:—
The Monarchies, Gods, Lakes, and Phlegeton,
I searcht and sung, while my Fates did permit;
But since my better part to heaven is gone,
And with his Maker mongst the starres doth sit,
I Dantes a poore banished man lie here,
Whom Florence Mother of scant Love did beare.
For “scant” in the last line Moryson (or his printers) substituted “sweet” (see Itinerary, ed. 1617, part i. p. 95).
54 See Ricci, op. cit. p. 264.
55 That is, “Sibi Vivens Fecit”.
56 See plate opposite. Bembo commemorated his restoration of the tomb in a Latin inscription (beginning: “Exigua tumuli Dantes hic sorte jacebas”), which was affixed to the wall at the left side of the tomb, and in which he states that before his restoration the tomb was almost unrecognisable. This inscription, which is still preserved, though in a different situation, was transcribed by Fynes Moryson in 1594.
57An interesting engraving of the tomb, as it appeared after this second restoration, is inserted in the first volume of the edition of Dante’s works published by Antonio Zatta at Venice in 1757.
58 “Nel anno 1321, del mese di Luglio,* morì Dante Alighieri di Firenze nella città di Ravenna in Romagna . . . e in Ravenna dinanzi alla porta della chiesa maggiore fu seppellito a grande onore, in abito di poeta e di grande filosafo” (bk. ix. ch. 136).
59 See above, p. 50; see also Zingarelli’s Dante, pp. 318-20. A sonnet of Dante to Quirini (Son. xxxvii.) is translated by Rossetti in Dante and his Circle, p. 240.
60 See above, p. 49.
* Villani’s mistake for September.
61 The original is printed in Rime di M. Cino da Pistoja, ordinate da G. Carducci, Firenze, 1862, pp. 136-7.
62 See Zingarelli, op. cit. pp. 326, 330-1.
63 The original is printed by Zingarelli, op. cit. p. 348.
CHAPTER II
Boccaccio’s rebuke to the Florentines—Efforts of Florence to get possession of Dante’s remains—Leo X grants permission for their removal—Disappearance of the remains—Their accidental discovery during the commemoration of the sixth centenary of Dante’s birth—Public exhibition of them at Ravenna, and subsequent re-interment.
T HE history of Dante’s remains from the time of their burial by Guido da Polenta in 1321 is a most curious one, and shows how jealously the people of Ravenna guarded the treasure which had been deposited in their keeping. Boccaccio, in a chapter of his Life of Dante, headed “A Rebuke to the Florentines,”1 reproaches them with their treatment of Dante, and urges them at least to recall his dead bo
dy from exile, adding, however, that he feels sure their request for his remains would be refused.
“Oh! ungrateful country,” he exclaims, “what madness, what blindness possessed you to drive out your most valued citizen, your chiefest benefactor, your one poet, with such unheard-of cruelty, and to keep him in exile? If perchance you excuse yourself on the ground of the common fury of that time, why, when your anger was appeased and your passion abated, and you repented you of your act, why did you not recall him? Alas! your Dante Alighieri died in that exile to which you, envious of his merit, unjustly sent him. Oh! unspeakable shame, that mother should regard with jealousy the virtues of her own son! Now you are freed from that disquietude, now he is dead you live secure amid your own imperfections, and can put an end to your long and unjust persecutions. He cannot in death do to you what he never in life would have done; he lies beneath another sky than yours, nor do you ever expect to behold him again, save on that day when you shall see once more all your citizens, whose iniquities by the just Judge shall be visited and rewarded. If then, as we believe, all hatred, and anger, and enmity cease at the death of whoso dies, do you now begin to return to your old self, and to your right mind; begin to think with shame of how you acted contrary to your ancient humanity; prove yourself now a mother, and no longer a foe, and grant to your son the tears that are his due, and show to him the love of a mother; seek at least to regain him in death, whom when alive you rejected, nay drove out as a malefactor, and restore to his memory the citizenship, the welcome, the grace you denied to himself. Of a truth, although you were wayward and ungrateful to him, he always revered you as a mother, and, though you deprived him of your citizenship, yet did he never seek to deprive you of the glory which from his works must ensue to you. A Florentine always, in spite of his long exile, he called himself, and would be called, always preferring you and loving you. What then will you do? Will you for ever remain stiff-necked in your injustice? Will you show less humanity than the pagans, who, we read, not only begged back the bodies of their dead, but were ever ready to meet death like heroes in order to get them back? Who doubts that the Mantuans, who to this day reverence the poor hut and the fields that once were Virgil’s, would have bestowed on him honourable burial had not the Emperor Augustus transported his bones from Brundusium to Naples, and ordained that city as their last resting-place?
“Do you then seek to be the guardian of your Dante. Ask for him back again, making a show of this humanity, even if you do not desire to have him back; with this pretence at least you will rid yourself of a part of the reproach you have so justly incurred. Ask for him back again! I am certain he will never be given back to you, and thus you will at once have made a show of compassion, and, being refused, may yet indulge your natural cruelty!
“But to what do I urge you? Hardly do I believe, if dead bodies have any feeling, that Dante’s body would remove from where it now lies, in order to return to you. He lies in company more honourable than any you can offer him. He lies in Ravenna, a city by far more venerable in years than yourself; and though in her old age she shows somewhat of decay, yet in her youth she was by far more flourishing than you are now. She is, as it were, a vast sepulchre of holy bodies, so that no foot can anywhere press her soil, without treading above the most sacred ashes. Who then would wish to return to you and be laid amongst your dead, who, one must believe, still retain the evil passions they cherished in their lifetime, and fly one from the other, carrying their enmities into the grave?
“Ravenna, bathed as she is in the most precious blood of numberless martyrs, whose remains she to this day preserves with the greatest reverence, as she does the bodies of many high and mighty emperors and other men of high renown, either for their long ancestry or for their noble deeds, Ravenna, I say, rejoices not a little that it has been granted to her of God, in addition to her other privileges, to be the perpetual guardian of so great a treasure as the body of him whose works are the admiration of the whole world, him of whom you knew not how to be worthy. But of a surety, her pride in possessing Dante is not so great as her envy of you by whose name he called himself; for she grieves that she will be remembered only on account of his last day, while you will be famous on account of his first. Persist then in your ingratitude, while Ravenna, decked with your honours, shall boast herself to the generations to come!”
Boccaccio was a true prophet. Five times the Florentines begged Ravenna to return to his native city the ashes of their great poet, each time in vain.
The first request was made in 1396, three-quarters of a century after Dante’s death. On this occasion it was proposed to erect monuments in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore to five illustrious citizens of Florence, viz. Accursius the great legist, Dante, Petrarch, Zanobi da Strada, and Boccaccio (the names being mentioned in that order in the official document),2 and it was resolved to secure if possible their mortal remains, doubtless for honourable interment at the same time. The petition for Dante’s remains was refused by the Polenta family, the then lords of Ravenna; and a second request, preferred on similar grounds some thirty years later (1430), was likewise refused.3
A third attempt appears to have been made in 1476, when interest was made with the Venetian ambassador (presumably Bernardo Bembo) by Lorenzo de’ Medici;4 but, though the ambassador promised compliance, nothing was done, and the hopes of Florence were once more disappointed.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century a fourth and most determined attempt was made by the Florentines to get possession of Dante’s remains, an attempt which had very remarkable consequences. From a letter written to Pietro Bembo, secretary to Leo X, in June, 1515, it appears that Leo, who belonged to the Medici family of Florence (he was the son of Lorenzo), and was also by virtue of the league of Cambrai (1509) lord of Ravenna, had granted or promised to the Florentines permission to remove the poet’s remains from Ravenna. Four years later (in 1519) a formal memorial5 was presented to Leo by the Medicean Academy, urging that the removal should be carried out, among the signatories being one of the Portinari, a descendant of the family to which Beatrice belonged. This memorial was endorsed by the great sculptor, Michel Angelo, who expressed his willingness to design and himself execute a fitting sepulchre. Leo granted the request of the Academicians, and forthwith a mission was despatched to Ravenna to bring back Dante’s bones to Florence. But meanwhile the custodians of the poet’s remains had taken the alarm, and when the tomb was opened by the Florentine envoys nothing was to be seen but some fragments of bone and a few withered laurel leaves, the relics no doubt of the poet’s crown which was laid upon the bier at the time of burial. In an account of the proceedings submitted to Leo the following “explanation” was offered of the disappearance of the remains: “The much wished-for translation of Dante’s remains did not take place, inasmuch as the two delegates of the Academy who were sent for the purpose found Dante neither in soul nor in body; and it is supposed that, as in his lifetime he journeyed in soul and in body through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, so in death he must have been received, body and soul, into one of those realms”.6
There is little doubt that Dante’s bones, which were still intact in 1483 when Bernardo Bembo restored the tomb, were secretly removed by the Franciscans in charge, between 1515 and 1519, the period when the question of their translation to Florence was being agitated by the Medicean Academy, armed with the permission of Leo X.
The secret of their disappearance was well kept in Ravenna. Two hundred and sixty years later (in 1780) the tomb was once more restored, and, at the inauguration by Cardinal Valenti Gonzaga, it was opened for the purpose of verifying the remains. The official account of the proceeding was couched in vague terms, which were obviously intended to conceal the fact that the tomb was found to be empty. An unofficial account, however, in the shape of an entry by one of the Franciscan monks in his missal, which has been preserved at Ravenna, contains the bald statement that “Dante’s sarcophagus was opened and nothing was found inside, whereu
pon it was sealed up again with the Cardinal’s seal, and silence was observed as to the whole matter, thus leaving the old opinion (as to the presence of the remains) undisturbed”.7
The secret of the removal of the remains was still preserved from the public, but that it was known to a select few is evident from the fact that sixty years after the above incident Filippo Mordani, in his memoir of Dionigi Strocchi, records that the latter said to him on 1 July, 1841: “I wish to tell you something, now that we are alone. The tomb of Dante is empty; the bones are no longer there. This was told me by your Archbishop, Mgr. Codronchi. But I pray you not to breathe a word of it, for it must remain a secret.”8
At last, when preparations were being made throughout Italy for the celebration of the sixth centenary of Dante’s birth, in 1865, the Florentines once more petitioned for the return of Dante’s remains to his native city. For the fifth and last time the request was refused, the Municipality of Ravenna claiming in their reply “that the deposit of the sacred bones of Dante Alighieri in Ravenna could no longer, in view of the happily changed conditions of Italy, be regarded as a perpetuation of his exile, inasmuch as all the cities of Italy were now united together by a lasting bond under one and the same government”.9
CHEST IN WHICH DANTE’S REMAINS WERE DISCOVERED AT RAVENNA IN 1865
Whether the Municipality, when they returned this answer, were aware that “the sacred bones” of Dante no longer reposed in the tomb which was supposed to contain them, does not appear. At any rate the secret of the empty tomb could not much longer be kept from the world at large, for the opening of the tomb and the identification of the poet’s remains was part of the programme of the sexcentenary celebration. Preparations for this ceremony were already in progress when the startling announcement was made that a wooden coffin containing the actual bones of Dante had been accidentally discovered bricked up in a cavity in a neighbouring wall.
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