CHAPTER I. BIBLIOGRAPHY. § 1. SOURCES. In undertaking to study seriously the story of Dante's life, to what sources must the student look? Many, indeed, and diverse in character, as well as in historic value, are the works which he will have to peruse. Among these, the first place must be assigned. to the Poet's own works. It is a principle, generally known and recognized, that, in order to know a writer, it is necessary, above all, to know his writings, these being usually the primitive source of all knowledge of the man, the most faithful mirror of his character and of his manner of thinking. In the various creations of this sublime genius, we possess not only a genuine portrait of his personality, and an authentic history of the gradual development of his thought, but also a store of precious information with regard to the external circumstances of his life. Beginning with The New Life, in which the youthful poet tells, in poetic and allegoric form, the story of his early loves, and ending with the Quaestio de Aqua et Terra, the last work which came from Dante's hand, we find everywhere in his writings so many biographical notices and so many allusions to the vicissitudes of the author's life, that a biography based solely upon these writings, such as has already been attempted, would furnish us with all the essential points in it. Thus, the entire works of Dante must be considered as the chief source of the history of his life, both internal and external, and to them, above all, the biographer and the student must have recourse. At the same time, such biographers and students must never forget that these works are works of art, in which two elements, or constituent parts, the one historical, the other poetical and allegorical, require to be carefully distinguished; and that it is only by seriously studying what Dante himself called the art of stripping the poet's words of their figurative dress and rhetorical coloring that their true meaning can be reached. With regard to the principal and more noteworthy editions of the works of Dante, we shall give such information as seems to us necessary, in the paragraphs devoted to the works themselves. Of the next greatest importance are those contemporary documents which relate, directly or indirectly, to the Poet and his family. The number of these has been considerably augmented in recent years, and there is room for hope that not a few more may still be recovered from the darkness in which they have perhaps lain buried for centuries. A complete collection of the authentic documents relating to Dante Alighieri, his ancestors and his descendants, has never been made, and, indeed, is a great desideratum. Those known in their time were carefully collected by Pelli, and afterwards by Fraticelli, and published in works which we shall cite further on. The documents, by no means few in number, discovered since the publication of Fraticelli's work, are at present scattered through various volumes, pamphlets, and reviews, so that it is not easy to obtain a complete knowledge of them. Besides a certain number published by Lord Vernon, Milanesi, and others, several important documents are to be found in the following works : Della Casa di Dante. A Report made to the Council General of Florence, with Documents. Florence, 1865, 8vo. Cavattoni Cesare : Hitherto unpublished Documents relating to some of Dante's Descendants, in the Albo Dantesco Veronese. Verona, 1865, 8vo, pp. 347-424. Del Lungo, Isidoro: Dell' Esilio di Dante. A Lecture. Florence, 1881, 12m0, pp. 83-208. Compare also the other work by the same author, Dino Compagni e la sua Cronica. Florence, 1879 sqq., 3 vols., 8vo. After the study of the works of Dante, and of all authentic documents relating to him, must follow that of the ancient commentators on The Divine Comedy. This poem, being entirely unique in its vast universality, which embraces heaven and earth, and the Poet taking frequent occasion therein to speak of himself and of the circumstances of his life, those ancient expositors, in commenting upon his "strange verses," could not help telling what they knew of him. The information which they give is all the more precious, the more nearly |