to him.1 From all this we may infer that Gemma Donati was worthy not only of the love, but also of the respect, of Dante.2 So far as we know, Gemma did not share her husband's exile. In the first years of it this was impossible, on account of the tender age of the children, which the unhappy woman had to bring up and educate without the aid of her husband, and deprived of a large part of her property. Whether, afterwards, in the years of his exile, she saw her husband occasionally and spent some time with him, we cannot tell, having no information on the subject.3 It is extremely probable that her permanent abode was at Florence; and it is certain that she lived there after the death of her husband, whom she survived for some years. § 5. PUBLIC Life. - At the time when Dante was entirely occupied with his philosophical studies, and "was attending the Schools of the Religious and the Disputations of the Philosophers," great changes were [1 Unfortunately, this single allusion, which is put into the mouth of Forese Donati, places the haughty Corso in Hell, and this our author, in his edition of The Comedy, fully admits. In Longfellow's translation it reads: "Now go," he said, "for him most guilty of it 66 Not long these wheels shall turn," and he uplifted [2 It will hardly now be necessary to say that this is an entirely gratuiIndeed, there is not a single word in Dante that in the tous conclusion. smallest degree justifies it.] [3 See, on the contrary, the express statement of Boccaccio, p. 67, note 1.] taking place in Florence. Worn out with the pride and arrogance of "the Grandees," the people, headed by the noble, rich, and powerful old bourgeois, Giano della Bella, passed those strong and severe laws against the great and powerful, which were called the Ordinances of Justice, and made it a rule that none of the nobles, called Grandees, should be eligible for the office of prior, the highest in the Florentine republic. There was also a law that every one who aspired to any office in the republic should enroll himself in some one of the professions. On attaining the prescribed age of thirty years, Dante, who had already borne arms in the battles of his country, and who felt the need of expanding in the direction of practical activity, enrolled himself in the sixth of the seven higher professions, that of the Physicians and Apothecaries. From that time he was much employed in the republic, and, in the year 1300, was created one of the priors, not by lot, but by election. This priorship was the fertile source and beginning of all his woes and misfortunes, his banishment and all the adversities of his life, notwithstanding that he continued, for more than a year after he laid down the supreme magistracy, to devote himself to the service of the republic. On the events of the years 1290-1301, compare the chroniclers and historians of the republic of Florence above mentioned. The Ordinances of Justice were published by Bonaini in the Archivio Storico Italiano, new series, Vol. I (1853), pp. 37-71. Compare also Ildef. S. Luigi, Delizie, IX, 305-330; Fineschi, Memorie Istoriche, I, 186-250. On the 5th of July, 1296 (perhaps in 1295: see Fraticelli, Vita di Dante, p. 211), Dante was a member of the Special Council, called also the Aldermanic Council (Consiglio del Podestà); he must, therefore, have been enrolled among the apothecaries before that time. It is said that in those days the apothecaries were also dealers in manuscript books, and that Dante matriculated in this profession in order to have greater leisure and opportunity to pursue his studies and widen the sphere of his knowledge. Cf. Enrico Croce, Dante Speziale, in the Revista Europea, February, 1876, pp. 496–500. Following a notion of Balbo's, several modern biographers of Dante tell us that, when Dante enrolled himself in the professions, he passed out of his own order into that of the bourgeois. But, in the first place, Dante, the bourgeois, had no order of his own to leave, in order to enter one which was his own already. In the second place, an enrolment in the professions was not a sign of any transition from the order of the grandees to that of the bourgeois. Cf. Todeschini, Scritti su Dante, I, 370 sqq. Of Dante's public life Leonardo Bruni tells us only the little we have just repeated. A great deal more is told by Boccaccio, whose account we quote with all necessary reserve, since it is apparently a rhetorical exercise rather than a piece of history: "Family care led Dante into public life, in which he was so much enveloped by the vain honors attached to public offices that, without looking either before or behind, he threw himself, without bit or bridle, almost completely into them; and so great was his success that no legation was heard or answered, no law passed or abrogated, no peace concluded or public war undertaken, — in a word, no measure of any importance adopted, until he had first expressed his opinion with regard to it. In him the public confidence, in him every hope, in him, in one word, all things divine and human seemed to centre. . . . In order to restore to unity the divided body of his state, Dante applied every faculty, every art, every endeavor, pointing out to the wiser portion of his fellow-citizens how, through discord, great things in a short time come to naught; whereas, through concord, small ones increase without limit. But, when he saw that all his efforts were in vain, and that the minds of his hearers were obstinate, fearing the judgment of God, he first resolved to turn his back upon every public office, and retire into private life. Afterwards, led on by the sweetness of glory and vain popular favor, as well as by the persuasions of his elders; and thinking, further, that, if occasion demanded, he might be of much more service to his city, if he were great in public affairs than if he were a private man and altogether removed from them, . . . the mature man... had neither the sense nor the power to defend himself against that sweetness. Dante, therefore, resolved to pursue the transient honors and vain pomp of public offices, and, seeing that, by himself, he could not form a third party, which, by its perfect justice, might overthrow the injustice of the other two and restore them to unity, he ranged himself on the side of that party which, in his judgment, exhibited most reason and justice, continually doing what he knew to be most serviceable to his country and his fellowcitizens." ... That Dante was a member of the Aldermanic Council, and several times also of the Consiglio delle Capitudini, is proved by the records. But to conclude from this that he was, in his profession, not a simple adscript, but also one of the officers, that is, one of the heads, is nothing more than a possibly correct conjecture. [1 That he tried, later in life, is evident from Cacciaguida's remark in Parad., XVII, 68 sq.:· "It shall be fame for thee That thou didst form a party by thyself."] According to Manetti, Dante was frequently sent as ambassador to illustrious princes and to the Court of Rome. Filelfo enumerates fourteen embassies undertaken by Dante, omitting from his list the only one about which there can be no doubt, because it rests on documentary evidence; that is, the embassy to the Commune of San Gemignano, which Dante undertook in May, 1299, in order to draw up an agreement about some details with reference to the Guelph league. A very simple calculation is sufficient to show that the embassies enumerated by Filelfo are to be counted fables. Dante's public life in the service of the Florentine republic includes, at most, seven years from 1295 to 1301. In these seven years we find him almost always in Florence: it is certain that he was there in 1296, 1300, and 1301. Whence it is impossible that Dante in these years should have gone as ambassador to Siena, Perugia, Venice, Ferrara, Genoa, San Gemignano, twice to Naples, four times to Rome, twice to the King of Hungary, and, finally, to the King of France. Moreover, we cannot, on any condition, admit that Dante was sent as ambassador to popes, kings, and great republics, before his election as prior had invested him with some prestige. Dante's priorship lasted but two months, from 15th June to 15th August, 1300. His colleagues were Noffo di Guido Buonafedi, Neri di Messer Jacopo del Giudice Alberti, Nello d' Arrighetto Doni, Bindo di Donato Bilenchi, Ricco Falconetti. The Gonfaloniere of Justice was Fazio da Micciolle; the Notary of the Signory, Ser Aldobrandino d' Uguccione da Campi. On the unfortunate events at Florence during Dante's priorship, see Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VIII, 38 sqq. Biographers exaggerate not a little the honor which Dante's fellow-citizens paid him by creating him one of the priors. Very correct are the remarks of Todeschini [Scritti su Dante], I, 381, sqq. "The Signory of Florence was composed of |