seven officials, six priors of professions and one gonfaloniere of justice, whose authority lasted but two months. There were, therefore, forty-two of them every year, and, since each of them was compelled by law to refrain for two years from seeking re-election, there must have been in the Commune at least ninety-one citizens who had been elected prior or gonfaloniere. As a matter of fact, the number must have been very much greater, because, instead of the previous signors' returning to office at the end of two years, such return to the supreme magistracy was both slow and unfrequent. For this reason there was a very large number of persons who held these offices; whence, election to them could not be regarded as any great or signal honor, but rather as a proof, necessary for a good bourgeois of good standing, to show that he enjoyed, in some degree, the respect of his fellow-citizens."

Leonardo Bruni quotes, from a now lost letter of the Poet's, these words: "All my woes and misfortunes had their cause and beginning in the unlucky elections (Comizi) of my priorship, of which priorship though I was not, on the score of prudence, worthy, nevertheless, on the score of faith and age, I was not unworthy of it." There is no reason to question the truth of these words, even if they were not corroborated by the Condemnations of the 27th January and the 10th March, 1302. Was Dante himself in some measure to blame, if so many woes and misfortunes sprang from his priorship? His biographers say, No. But, in the words quoted, he himself admits having lacked prudence. Indeed, at the very time when Dante was one of the priors, the Pope sent Cardinal Matteo of Acquasparta, as his legate, to Florence, to pacify the city, and it was just Dante and his colleagues who opposed him, "for fear of ruining the State"; whereupon the cardinal departed in anger, leaving the city of Florence excommunicated and interdicted. (Cf. G. Villani, Cronica, VIII, 40; Paul. Pieri, edit.

Adami, p. 67.) If Dante and his colleagues had not adopted the worse counsel, and refused to obey, humanly speaking, Charles of Valois would not have come to Florence in the following year, and all the sad effects of that coming would have been avoided. The remark, therefore, made in the Condemnations of the 27th January, 1302, that Dante and his associates had reaped what they had sown, was not altogether false.

The resistance offered to the Cardinal of Acquasparta is the only important event which we know positively to have taken place during Dante's priorship. And his fault, or imprudence, would have been very great, if he had exerted, in the chief· magistracy and, in general, in the government of Florence, the great influence which his biographers ascribe to him. But the truth is, we have every ground for believing that that great influence is a mere gift, presented by them to their hero. It is sufficient to observe that his contemporary, Giovanni Villani, who began to write his Chronicle in the very year of Dante's priorship, found no chance to mention Dante's name among those of the many persons of whom he speaks, as having, in those years, exercised some influence on the course of affairs at Florence.

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We may, further, observe that Dante was created prior at the very time when the leaders of the Guelph party were afraid lest the Ghibelline party should gain the ascendant in Florence, as it promised to do, on account of its good behavior, and many Ghibellines, reputed good men, had begun to be put in office.” (Villani, Cronica, VIII, 11.)

Dante's biographers tell us that it was during his priorship that the heads of the Black Party were sent to the frontier at Castello della Pieve, and those of the White Party at Serrezzano. Hence they praise Dante for his rigorous impartiality, in not having spared his "first friend," Guido Cavalcanti. But, from the order in which Villani relates the events, it is clear

that the banishment in question took place when Dante was no longer in office.1

In 1301, Dante debated twice in the Aldermanic Council, and once in the Council of the Hundred. (Compare Fraticelli, Vita di Dante, pp. 136 sqq.) In April of that year there was presented to the Committee on Streets, Squares, and Bridges a petition, setting forth that the Via di San Procolo, now Via dei Pandolfini, and part of the Via dell' Agnolo, which was broad and straight as far as the Borgo della Piagentina, was, from this borgo to the torrent Africo, narrow, tortuous, and in bad condition, and praying that it might be widened, straightened, and mended. The Committee ordered the work to be done, and appointed Dante Alighieri as its superintendent, to be assisted by Guglielmo della Piagenta, as notary and registrar. Cf. Archivio Storico Italiano, Ser. III, vol. IX, p. 53.

§ 6. BANISHMENT. Incensed because the White Party would not obey the Cardinal of Acquasparta, his legate, Pope Boniface VIII sent for Charles of Valois, brother of the King of France, giving him the title of "Pacifier of Tuscany," to bring the city of Florence to its senses by force. The White Party having been overthrown by the aid of Charles, who entered Florence on the 1st November, 1301, and the

[1 Macchiavelli takes the other view. In his History of Florence, Bk. II, Chap. IV, he says: "Both parties being in arms, the Signory, one of whom at that time was the poet Dante, took courage, and, from his advice and prudence, caused the people to rise for the preservation of order, and being joined by many from the country, they compelled the leaders of both parties to lay aside their arms, and banished Corso, with many of the Neri. And, as an evidence of the impartiality of their motives, they also banished many of the Bianchi."- Bohn's Translation.]

Black Party having thus become masters of the city, a large number of citizens belonging to the White Party were banished, their houses destroyed, and their goods confiscated. Among the number of these unfortunate persons was Dante Alighieri, who, being charged with various crimes, was condemned, on the 27th January, 1302, by the new provost, Cante de' Gabrielli d' Agobbio, to a fine of five thousand small florins, and, if the sum were not paid within three days, his goods were to be confiscated, destroyed, and disbanded, and, so destroyed and disbanded, were to remain in the Commune. And, even though he should pay the fine within three days, he was still condemned to remain outside the province of Tuscany for two years, and, whether he paid or not, to be disqualified, as a forger and bribetaker, from holding any office or benefice in the gift of the Commune of Florence, in the city, country, district, or elsewhere. This sentence, pronounced upon the contumacious Dante, was followed, forty days after, on the 10th March, 1302, by another, in which, basing his action upon the fact that the Poet had, in the first place, not obeyed his summons, in the second, that he had not paid his fine (facts which were assumed to mean that he admitted the crimes laid to his charge), Cante de' Gabrielli condemned him to be burned alive, if ever he should come within the jurisdiction of the Commune of Florence. Nor was this the last condemnation pronounced upon Dante. His name figures among the rebels and outlaws from his country, in Messer Baldo d' Aguglione's

Reform of the 2d September, 1311, and, along with those of his sons, in the condemnation and banishment of the 6th November, 1315. And even twenty years after his death, Dante Alighieri was spoken of, in the official language of Florence, as an exile and a rebel, banished and condemned by the Commune, as a foe to the Guelph Party, and a bribe-taker in the priorship.

The coming of Charles of Valois to Florence, and the events which followed, are related by the contemporary chronicler, Giovanni Villani. The confusion which we find in all the modern biographers of Dante, in the exposition of these events, is due to an attempt on their part to reconcile the dates of a forger with those of a chronicler. But, now that the imposture of the forger is universally recognized, the difficulties created by him have disappeared, and the account of Villani's Cronica has been followed (VIII, 49).

On the other hand, Dante's personal experiences in those sad days are, in great measure, involved in darkness. Any one reading his ancient biographers, without having any other knowledge to control them with, would suppose that it was just during those days that Dante was invested with the dignity of prior. This is perhaps due to their having misinterpreted the following words of Villani (Cronica, IX, 136): "His [Dante's] banishment from Florence was due to the fact that, when Messer Charles of Valois, of the House of France, came to Florence in 1301, and expelled the White Party, said Dante was one of the chief governors of our city, and belonged to that party, although he was a Guelph; and, therefore, without any other fault, he was expelled and banished from Florence along with said White Party." Dante, as we have seen, was one of the priors from the

[1 It is hard to see what Villani's phrase," one of the chief governors "