Ravenna, a Study Part 16

Pietro Traversari was succeeded as Podesta in 1225 by his son Paolo, who became Guelf and fought in Innocent IV.'s quarrel against the emperor Frederick II.; Frederick was able to turn the Traversari out of Ravenna in 1240 and to hold the city for eight years, but in 1248 the pope retook it and the Traversari were restored though not I think to the chief power. They remained in power till in the last year of the reign of Gregory X., 1275, Guido da Polenta appears.

Rudolph of Hapsburg was now king--not emperor, for he was never crowned by the pope. He had been a partisan of the second Frederick's, but pope Nicholas III. did not find in the founder of the Hapsburg dynasty the stuff of the Hohenstaufen. In 1278 he forced Rudolph to secure to him by an "irrevocable decree" all that the papacy had ever claimed in the Exarchate and the Pentapolis. The empire renounced all its claims in the Romagna and the Marches; the confines of the states of the Church were defined anew, and the cities of which the pope was absolute lord were named one by one. Of course among these was Ravenna.

The Polentani appear first in the story of Ravenna in or about the year 1167, when we find them acting as vicars for the archbishops. We next hear of them as Podesta, their long rule really beginning, as I have said, in 1275, when Guido il Vecchio, a rather formidable soldier, appears as captain of the people and victor over Cervia, whose territory he added to the dominion of Ravenna. It was indeed this man who first in the Ravenna of the Middle Ages attempted to establish an independent or semi-independent state, by adding territory to territory and thus creating a lords.h.i.+p. For this end he allied himself with the Malatesta of Rimini--a master stroke, for the Polentani of Ravenna and the Malatesta of Rimini had long been bitter foes.

The alliance was cemented by a marriage which all the world knows as an immortal tragedy. Guido Vecchio had a beautiful daughter, Francesca. Malatesta had two sons, the elder Giovanni called, for he was a cripple, _lo Sciancato_, the younger, for he was very fair, known as Paolo _il Bello_. To secure their alliance Polenta married his daughter Francesca to Malatesta's elder son Giovanni; but she had already learned to love, or she soon came to love, his brother Paolo il Bella. Giovanni came upon them one night in Rimini and killed them both with one thrust of his sword. The tragedy, however, should only be told in the immortal words of Dante, who recounts the tale Francesca told him in the second circle of the Inferno. For seeing Francesca and her lover floating for ever in each other arms "light before the wind," as the wind swayed them towards Virgil and himself the Florentine addressed them:

"O wearied spirits come, and hold discourse With us, if by none else restrained.' As doves By fond desire invited, on wide wings And firm, to their sweet nest returning home, Cleave the air, wafted by their will along, Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks, They, through the ill air speeding, with such force My cry prevailed, by strong affection urged.

'O gracious creature and benign! who go'st Visiting, through this element obscure, Us, who the world with b.l.o.o.d.y stain imbrued, If, for a friend, the King of all, we own'd, Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise, Since thou hast pity on our evil plight Of whatsoe'er to hear or to discourse It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind As now is mute The land that gave me birth Is situate on the coast, where Po descends To rest in ocean with his sequent streams 'Love that in gentle heart is quickly learnt Entangled him by that fair form, from me Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still, Love that denial takes from none beloved Caught me with pleasing him so pa.s.sing well That as thou seest, he yet deserts me not 'Love brought us to one death, Caina waits The soul who spilt our life' Such were their words, At hearing which downward I bent my looks And held them there so long that the bard cried 'What art thou pondering?' I in answer thus 'Alas' by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire Must they at length to that ill pa.s.s have reached'

Then turning, I to them my speech address'd, And thus began 'Francesca! your sad fate Even to tears my grief and pity moves But tell me, in the time of your sweet sighs, By what, and how Love granted, that ye knew Your yet uncertain wishes?' She replied 'No greater grief then to remember days Of joy when misery is at hand That kens Thy learn'd instructor Yet so eagerly If thou art bent to know the primal root From whence our love gat being, I will do As one who weeps and tells his tale One day For our delight we read of Lancelot, How him love thrall'd Alone we were and no Suspicion near us Oft-times by that reading Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue Fled from our altered cheek But at one point Alone we fell When of that smile we read, That wished smile, so rapturously kissed By one so deep in love, then he, who ne'er From me shall separate, at once my lips All trembling kissed The book and writer both Were love's purveyors In its leaves that day We read no more' While thus one spirit spake The other wailed so sorely, that heart-struck I, through compa.s.sion fainting, seem'd not far From death and like a corse fell to the ground"

With the name of Dante we come to the real importance Ravenna has for us in the Middle Age. Dante, however, was not the guest of Guido Vecchio. That great lord ruled in Ravenna as perpetual captain till his death in 1310, when he was succeeded by his son Lamberto who had for some time been the leading spirit in the city. He altogether abolished the so-called democratic government, that is to say, the consuls.h.i.+p which was filled in turn by two consuls, the one succeeding the other every fifteen days. Lamberto made himself lord and reigned till 1316, when he was succeeded by his nephew Guido Novello, the consul of Cesena, who thus brought Cesena into the lords.h.i.+p. It is with this man that a universal interest in Ravenna may be said for a moment to revive, for it was he who had the honour to be the host of Dante Alighieri.

Guido Novello was not a mere adventurer like Guido Vecchio, he was a man of considerable culture, with a love of learning and of the arts.

It was, as we shall see, at his earnest solicitation that Dante came to visit him, and if we may believe Vasari it was at the poet's suggestion he invited Giotto to his court. "As it had come to the ears of Dante that Giotto was in Ferrara, he so contrived that the latter was induced to visit Ravenna, where the poet was then in exile, and where Giotto painted some frescoes which are moderately good ... for the Signori da Polenta."

Dante as we may think spent the last four years of his life in Ravenna. Those four years we shall consider presently. Here it will be enough to note that he met his death at last in the service of his host and benefactor Guido Novello. The most disastrous action of his life was, it will be remembered, the emba.s.sy he made on behalf of his own city of Florence to pope Boniface VIII. That business cost him his home and the city he loved with so cruel a pa.s.sion; it made him an exile. It was upon the longest journey of all that his last emba.s.sy sent him. He set out it seems as amba.s.sador of Guido Novello for Venice, which so far as the sea and all its business are concerned had long replaced Ravenna as mistress of the Adriatic. The recent acquisition of the city and the salt flats of Cervia by Ravenna had become a grievance with the Venetians who desired that monopoly for themselves. It seems that in some local quarrel at Cervia certain Venetian sailors had been killed and Dante went on Guide's behalf to clear the matter up. He was to be as it happened as unsuccessful in his last emba.s.sy as he had been in his first. The old doge, according to the legend which I am bound to say is now generally regarded as a fable, received him coldly and, so the tale runs, invited him to dinner upon a fast day. "In front of the envoys of other princes who were of greater account than the Polentani of Ravenna, and were served before Dante, the larger fish were placed, while in front of Dante was placed the smallest. This difference of treatment nettled Dante who took up one of the little fish in his hand and held it to his ear as though expecting it to say something. The doge observing this asked him what his strange behaviour meant. To which Dante replied: 'As I knew that the father of this fish met his death in these waters I was asking him news of his father.'

"'Well,' said the doge, 'and what did he answer?' Dante replied: 'He told me that he and his companions were too little to remember much about him; but that I might learn what I wanted to know from the older fish, who would be able to give me the news I asked for.'

"Thereupon the doge at once ordered Dante to be served with a fine large fish."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Colour Plate S. GIOVANNI BATTISTA]

Thus Dante called attention to his great achievement, by which I suppose he hoped at once to vindicate his dignity as a great man, certainly greater than any one present, and by this means to lend importance to his mission. Whatever may have been the personal result of his sally, it did his mission no good at all. When the official interview took place Dante, if we may believe something of the apocryphal "Letter of Dante to Guido da Polenta," began to address the doge in Latin and was bidden to speak in Italian or to obtain an interpreter. His mission was a failure and Venice, who in the person of her doge did her best to show either her ignorance of the great poet who did her the honour of crossing her Piazza or of her philistine contempt of him, lives in the _Divine Comedy_ only as an ill.u.s.tration of h.e.l.l.

"Thus we from bridge to bridge ...

Pa.s.s'd on, and to the summit reaching, stood To view another gap, within the round Of Malebolge, other bootless pangs.

Marvellous darkness shadow'd o'er the place.

In the Venetian a.r.s.enal as boils Through wintry months tenacious pitch, to smear Their unbound vessels ...

So not by force of fire but art divine Boiled here a glutinous thick ma.s.s, that round Limed all the sh.o.r.e."

On his way back to Ravenna by land, for the Venetians added to their shame by refusing him the sea pa.s.sage, he caught a fever in the marshes and returned to Ravenna only to die: the mightiest of all those--emperors and kings--who lie in that "_generale sepolcro di santissimi corpi_."

That was in 1321; and with the death of Dante our interest in Ravenna again becomes cold. Guido Novello soon fell, driven out of Ravenna, never to return, by Ostasio who had a.s.sa.s.sinated Guide's brother the archbishop-elect Rinaldo. Ostasio ruled with the t.i.tle of vicar which he received both from Lewis the Bavarian and from pope Benedict XII.

This vicious and cruel despot was succeeded by his equally cruel son Bernardino. He ruled for fourteen years, 1345-1359, not, however, without mishap, for his brothers conspired against him and flung him into prison at Cervia. He contrived, however, to turn the tables upon them and to hold them in the same dungeon where he himself had been their prisoner. He was succeeded at last by Guido Lucio, a man of some integrity; but he too was the victim of his family, his own sons rising up against him in his old age and in 1389 flinging him into prison where he died.

He was followed in the lords.h.i.+p of Ravenna by his son Ostasio. This man died in 1431, that is to say, in the midst of all the confusion, here in Romagna and the Marches, of the fifteenth century, when the condottieri were one and all looking for thrones and such ambitions as those of the Visconti, of Francesco Sforza, of Sigismondo Malatesta, of Federigo of Urbino and of a host of _parvenus_ were struggling for dominion and mastery. Thus it was that Ostasio's successor, Ostasio, in 1438 was compelled to make alliance with duke Filippo Maria of Milan. Venice, ever watchful, saw Visconti's game, remembered Cervia, and insisted upon Ostasio coming to Venice. While there he learned that Venice had annexed his dominion. Nor are we surprised to learn that he ended his days in a Franciscan convent, where he was mysteriously a.s.sa.s.sinated, probably by order of Venice. But with the entry of Venice into Ravenna the Middle Age, even in that far place, comes to an end. The Polentani were done with. A new and vigorous government ushered the old imperial city into the Renaissance.

XV

DANTE IN RAVENNA

Before following the fortunes of Ravenna under that new and alien government into the Renaissance and the modern world, it will be well if we turn to examine more closely her one great moment in the Middle Age, the moment in which Dante found in her a last refuge, and then linger a little among such of her mediaeval buildings as the modern world has left her.

In any attempt to deal, however briefly, with Dante's sojourn in Ravenna we must first find out what we really know concerning it and distinguish this from what is mere conjecture or deduction. Now the first authority for Dante's life generally, is undoubtedly Boccaccio, and as it happens he was in Ravenna, where he had relations, certainly in 1350 and perhaps in 1346. In 1350 he was the envoy of the Or San Michele Society, who by his hand sent Beatrice, the daughter of Dante, then a nun in the convent of S. Stefano dell' Uliva in Ravenna, ten gold florins He was thus in communication with Dante's daughter so that when he came to write the Vita di Dante, probably in 1356-1357, he was certainly in possession of facts. It will be well then if we state to begin with in his own words what he has told us of the years Dante spent in Ravenna.

But first as to the date of Dante's coming to Ravenna. Boccaccio would seem to place it immediately after the death of Henry VII. in 1313. To modern scholars.h.i.+p this has seemed incredible for various reasons, and it prefers to allow Dante to visit Verona first and to come to Ravenna in 1317. Yet let us hear Boccaccio.

He begins by telling us that the too early death of the emperor, who was poisoned, as is thought, at Buonconvento in southern Tuscany on S.

Bartholomew's day in 1313, cast every one of his faction into despair "and Dante most of all; wherefore no longer going about to seek his own return from exile he pa.s.sed the heights of the Apennines and departed to Romagna where his last day, that was to put an end to all his toils, awaited him.

"In those times was Lord of Ravenna (a famous and ancient city of Romagna) a n.o.ble cavalier whose name was Guido Novello da Polenta; he was well skilled in the liberal arts and held men of worth in the highest honour, especially such as excelled others in knowledge. And when it came to his ears that Dante, beyond all expectation, was now in Romagna and in such desperate plight, he, who had long time before known his worth by fame, resolved to receive him and do him honour.

Nor did he wait to be requested by him to do this, but considering with how great shame men of worth ask such favours, with liberal mind and with free proffers he approached him, requesting from Dante of special grace that which he knew Dante must needs have begged of him, to wit, that it might please him to abide with him. The two wills, therefore, of him who received and of him who made the request thus uniting on one same end, Dante, being highly pleased by the liberality of the n.o.ble cavalier, and on the other side constrained by his necessities, awaited no further invitation but the first, and took his way to Ravenna, where he was honourably received by the lord thereof, who revived his fallen hope by kindly festerings; and giving him abundantly such things as were fitting, he kept him with him there for many years, yea, even to the last year of his life.

"Never had his amorous longings, nor his grieving tears, nor his domestic anxieties, nor the seducing glory of public offices, nor his miserable exile, nor his unendurable poverty, been able with all their force to turn Dante aside from his main intent, to wit, from sacred studies; for as will be seen hereafter, when mention shall be made severally of the works that he composed, he will be found to have exercised himself in writing in the midst of all that is fiercest among these pa.s.sions. And if in the teeth of such and so many adversaries as have been set forth above, he became by force of genius and of perseverance so ill.u.s.trious as we see, what may we suppose he would have been if, like many another, he had had even as many supports; or, at least, had had no foes; or but few? Indeed I know not. But were it lawful so to say, I would declare that he had surely become a G.o.d upon the earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Casa Polentana]

"Dante then, having lost all hope of a return to Florence, though he retained the longing for it, dwelt in Ravenna for a number of years, under the protection of its gracious lord. And here by his teachings he trained many scholars in poetry, especially in the vernacular, which vernacular to my thinking he first exalted and brought into repute amongst us Italians no otherwise than did Homer his amongst the Greeks or Virgil his amongst the Latins. Before him, though it is supposed that it had already been practised some short s.p.a.ce of years, yet was there none who by the numbering of the syllables and by the consonance of the terminal parts had the feeling or the courage to make it the instrument of any matter dealt with by the rules of art; or rather it was only in the lightest of love poems that they exercised themselves therein. But he showed by the effect that every lofty matter may be treated in it; and made our vernacular glorious above every other.

"But since his hour is a.s.signed to every man, Dante when already in the middle or thereabout of his fifty-sixth year fell sick and in accordance with the Christian religion received every Sacrament of the Church humbly, and devoutly, and reconciled himself with G.o.d by contrition for everything, that, being but man, he had done against His pleasure; and in the month of September in the year of Christ one thousand three hundred and twenty-one, on the day whereon the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is celebrated by the Church, not without greatest grief on the part of the aforesaid Guido and generally all the other Ravennese citizens, he rendered up to his Creator his toil-worn spirit, the which I doubt not was received into the arms of his most n.o.ble Beatrice, with whom, in the sight of Him who is the supreme good, the miseries of this present life left behind, he now lives most joyously in that life the felicity of which expects no end.

"The magnanimous cavalier placed the dead body of Dante, adorned with poetic insignia, upon a funeral bier, and had it borne on the shoulders of his most distinguished citizens to the place of the Minor Friars in Ravenna, with such honour as he deemed worthy of such a corpse And here, public lamentations as it were having followed him so far, he had him placed in a stone chest, wherein he still lieth. And returning to the house in which Dante lately lived, according to the Ravennese custom he himself delivered an ornate and long discourse both in commendation of the profound knowledge and the virtue of the deceased, and in consolation of his friends whom he had left in bitterest grief. He purposed, had his estate and his life endured, to honour him with so choice a tomb that if never another merit of his had made him memorable to those to come, this tomb should have accomplished it.

"This laudable intent was in brief s.p.a.ce of time made known to certain who in those days were most famous for poetry in Ravenna; whereon each one for himself, to show his own power and to bear witness to the goodwill he had to the dead poet, and to win the grace and love of the signore, who was known to have it at heart, made verses which, if placed as epitaph on the tomb that was to be, should with due praises teach posterity who lay therein. And these verses they sent to the glorious signore, who, by great guilt of Fortune, in short s.p.a.ce of time lost his estate, and died at Bologna; wherefore the making of the tomb and the placing of the verses thereon were left undone. Now when these verses were shown to me long afterward, perceiving that they had never been put in their place, by reason of the chance already spoken of, and pondering on the present work that I am writing, how that it is not indeed a material tomb, but is none the less--as that was to have been--a perpetual preserver of his memory, I imagined that it would not be unfitting to add them to this work. But in as much as no more than the words of some one of them (for there were several) would have been cut upon the marble, so I held that only the words of one should be written here; wherefore on examining them all I judged that the most worthy for art and for matter were fourteen verses made by Messer Giovanni del Virgilio the Bolognese, a most ill.u.s.trious and great poet of those days, and one who had been a most especial friend of Dante. And the verses are these hereafter written:

"'Theologus Dantes, nullius dogmatis expers, Quod foveat claro philosophia sinu, Gloria musarum, vulgo gratissimus auctor, Hic iacet, et fama pulsat utrumque polum, Qui loca defunctis, gladiis regnumque gemellis, Distribuit, laicis rhetoricisque modis.

Pascua Pieriis demum resonabat avenis, Atropos heu letum livida rupit opus Huic ingrata tulit tristem Florentia fructum, Exilium, vati patria cruda suo.

Quem pia Guidonis gremio Ravenna Novelli Gaudet honorati continuisse ducis.

Mille trecentenis ter septem Numinis annis, Ad sua septembris idibus astra redit.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: The translation is Mr. Wicksteed's The Early Lives of Dante. He adds a translation of the verses "Theologic Dante, a stranger to no teaching that philosophy may cherish in her ill.u.s.trious bosom; glory of the Muses, author most acceptable to the commonalty, lieth here and smiteth either pole with his fame, who a.s.signed their places to the dead, and their jurisdictions to the twin swords, in laic and rhetoric modes. And lastly, with Pierian pipe he was making the pasture lands resound, black Atropos, alas, broke off the work of joy. For him ungrateful Florence bore the dismal fruit of exile, harsh fatherland to her own bard. But Ravenna's piety rejoices to have gathered him into the bosom of Guido Novello, her ill.u.s.trious chief.

In one thousand three hundred and three times seven years of the Deity, he went back on September's Ides to his own stars."]

So far Boccaccio. Though his account tells us much it certainly does not permit us to make many definite statements as to Dante's life in Ravenna. One of the first things, for instance, that any modern biographer would have noted with accuracy would have been the house in which Dante lived. Something definite, too, we might have expected as to his friends and correspondents, as to his occupations and habits.

Of all this there is almost nothing. It will, however, especially be noted that Boccaccio speaks of Dante as "training many scholars in poetry especially in the vernacular." What can this mean?

It has been suggested and with some authority that Dante was not entirely dependent upon his host Guido Novello, that he was able to gain a livelihood, at least, by lectures either in his own house or in some public place, and that it is even probable that he occupied an official position in Ravenna of a very honourable sort, that he was, in fact, professor of Rhetoric in that city. There is no evidence to support such a theory. It is true that though we know the names of the professors of Grammar or Rhetoric in the very ancient schools of Ravenna, schools which date from the time of Theodosius the Great, we do not find the name of him who filled that chair during the time of Dante's sojourn in Ravenna. In 1268 Pasio della Noce was lecturing on Jurisprudence in Ravenna; in 1298 Ugo di Riccio was professor of Civil Law there; in 1304 Leone da Verona is teaching Grammar and Logic in the city. Then we hear no more till we come to the year 1333, when a certain Giovanni Giacomo del Bando is professor.[1] The mere absence of names--a silence which does not coincide in any way with Dante's advent or with Dante's death--is, certainly, not enough to allow us to a.s.sert the probability of the great poet's having filled the office of lecturer or professor of Civil Law in the school of Ravenna. It is true that Saviozzo da Siena tells us:

"Qui comincio a leggere Dante in pria Retorica vulgare e molti aperti Fece di sua Poetica armonia"

and that Manetti, an early biographer, seems to support the theory.

But the best evidence, if evidence it can be called, which we have for this theory is to be found in a codex in the Laurentian Library, quoted by Bandini and cited by Dr. Ricci, which says: "It is commonly reported that Dante, being in Ravenna, studying and giving lectures as a doctor to his pupils upon various works, the schools became the resort of many learned men." This statement upon hearsay, however, does little more than confirm the definite a.s.sertion of Boccaccio that Dante "trained many scholars," not in civil law, but in "poetry, especially in the vernacular."

[Footnote 1: For a full discussion of all that may be known of Dante at the Poleata court see Dr. Ricci's large work, _L'Ultimo Rifugio di Dante_ (1891). A charming book in English, _Dante in Ravenna_ (1898), by Catherine Mary Phillimore, is to a great extent based upon Dr.

Ricci's work. A valuable book that should be consulted is the more recent volume by P.H. Wicksteed and E.G. Gardner, _Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio_ (1902).]

It is quite unproved then that Dante lectured in Ravenna as a professor of Civil Law. It might seem equally certain that he did lecture upon Poetry and the vulgar tongue, and it seems likely that we have the text of his lectures in the latter if not in the earlier part of the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ "in which in masterly and polished Latin he reproves all the vulgar dialects of Italy." Boccaccio tells us he composed this when he was "already nigh his death," and though modern criticism seems inclined to date its composition not later than 1306 the evidence of Boccaccio is not lightly to be set aside[1].

[Footnote 1: The first part of this work was certainly not written later than 1306 the second part may well have been later.]

Lonely as he doubtless was in Ravenna he was not alone there. With him it would seem was his daughter Beatrice, who became a nun in S.

Stefano dell' Uliva, and his sons Pietro and Jacopo. The latter, though a lawyer and not in holy orders, held two benefices in Ravenna, but most of his time seems to have been spent in Verona where Jacopo, his brother, later held a canonry. And then there were his friends.