Chapter X: Book III: And this rebuke to the clergy, from whom the main opposition

to the Empire proceeded, naturally leads to the great question of the third book, the pith of the whole treatise.[22] Does the authority of the Roman Monarch or Emperor, who is thus by right the monarch of the world, depend immediately upon God, or upon some vicar of God, the successor of Peter? (iii. 1, 2, 3). The stock arguments of those who assert from passages of Scripture, such as the creation of the sun and moon, or the two swords mentioned in St. Luke’s Gospel, that the authority of the Empire depends upon that of the Church, are readily brushed away (iii. 4-9). And, as for their historical evidence, the donation of Constantine, if genuine, was invalid; the coronation of Charlemagne was an act of usurpation (iii. 10, 11). The authority of the Church cannot be the cause of the imperial authority, since the latter was efficient, and was confirmed by Christ, before the Church existed (iii. 13). Neither has the Church this power of authorising the Emperor from God, nor from herself, nor from any Emperor, nor from the consent of the majority of mankind; indeed, such power is absolutely contrary to her very nature and the words of her Divine Founder (iii. 14, 15).

But it may be directly shown that the authority of the Emperor depends immediately upon God. For man, since he alone partakes of corruptibility and incorruptibility, is ordained for two ultimate ends--blessedness of this life, which is figured in the Earthly Paradise, and blessedness of life eternal, which consists in the fruition of the Divine Aspect in the Celestial Paradise.[23] To these two beatitudes, as to diverse ends, man must come by diverse means. For to the first we come by philosophic teachings, provided that we follow them by acting in accordance with the moral and intellectual virtues; to the second by spiritual teachings, transcending human reason, as we follow them by acting in accordance with the theological virtues, Faith, Hope, Charity. But in spite of reason and revelation, which make these ends and means known to us, human cupidity would reject them, “were not men, like horses going astray in their brutishness, held in the way by bit and rein.” “Wherefore man had need of a twofold directive power according to his twofold end, to wit, the supreme Pontiff, to lead the human race, in accordance with things revealed, to eternal life; and the Emperor, to direct the human race to temporal felicity in accordance with the teachings of philosophy.” It is the special function of the Emperor to establish liberty and peace upon earth, to make the world correspond to the divinely ordained disposition of the heavens. Therefore he is chosen and confirmed by God alone; the so-called Electors are only the proclaimers (_denuntiatores_) of Divine Providence. “Thus, then, it is plain that the authority of the temporal monarch descends upon him without any mean from the fountain of universal authority.” Yet it must not be taken that the Roman Prince is not subordinate in anything to the Roman Pontiff, since this mortal felicity is in some sort ordained with reference to immortal felicity. “Let Caesar, therefore, observe that reverence to Peter which a firstborn son should observe to a father, so that, illuminated by the light of paternal grace, he may with greater power irradiate the world, over which he is set by Him alone who is ruler of all things spiritual and temporal” (_Mon._ iii. 16).

RECEPTION OF THE WORK.--The _Monarchia_ remained almost unknown until the great conflict between Louis of Bavaria and Pope John XXII., after Dante’s death. Boccaccio tells us that the Imperialists used arguments from the book in support of their claims, and it became in consequence very famous. A tempest of clerical indignation roared round it. A Dominican friar, Guido Vernani, wrote a virulent but occasionally acute treatise, “on the power of the Supreme Pontiff and in confutation of the _Monarchy_ composed by Dante Alighieri,” which he dedicated as a warning to Ser Graziolo de’ Bambaglioli, chancellor of Bologna, Dante’s commentator and apologist. The notorious Cardinal Bertrando del Poggetto, who had been sent as papal legate to Italy by John XXII., had the _Monarchia_ burnt as heretical, and followed this up--apparently in 1329--by an infamous attempt to desecrate Dante’s tomb. In the sixteenth century it was placed upon the Index of Prohibited Books. Dante had anticipated this, and the splendid passage which opens the third book of the _Monarchia_ strikes the keynote, not only of this treatise, but of all his life-work for what he conceived the service of God and the welfare of man:

“Since the truth about it cannot be laid bare without putting certain to the blush, perchance it will be the cause of some indignation against me. But since Truth from her immutable throne demands it, and Solomon, too, as he enters the forest of the Proverbs, teaches us by his own example to meditate upon the truth and abjure the impious man, and the Philosopher, teacher of morals, urges us to sacrifice friendship for truth, therefore I take courage from the words of Daniel, wherein the divine power, the shield of such as defend the truth, is proffered; and, putting on the breastplate of faith, according to the admonition of Paul, in the warmth of that coal which one of the Seraphim took from the celestial altar and touched the lips of Isaiah withal, I will enter upon the present wrestling-ground, and, by the arm of Him who delivered us from the power of darkness by His blood, will I hurl the impious and the liar out of the ring in the sight of all the world. What should I fear, since the Spirit, coeternal with the Father and with the Son, says by the mouth of David: ‘The just shall be had in everlasting remembrance; he shall not be afraid of an evil report’?”

3. _The “Epistolae”_

Dante tells us in the _Vita Nuova_ that, on the death of Beatrice, he wrote a Latin letter to the chief persons of the city, concerning its desolate and widowed condition, beginning with the text of Jeremiah: “How doth the city sit solitary.” Neither this nor the letter mentioned by Leonardo Bruni, in which Dante described the fight at Campaldino, has survived. Many epistles ascribed to Dante were extant in the days of Boccaccio and Bruni. Bruni tells us that, after the affair at Lastra, Dante wrote for permission to return to Florence both to individual citizens in the government and to the people, especially a long letter beginning: “O my people, what have I done unto thee?” This may perhaps have been the letter which Bruni records, in which the poet defends his impartiality when the leaders of the two factions were banished; but there appears to have been another, denying that he had accompanied the Emperor against Florence. From one of these the perplexing fragment may have come, about his want of prudence in the priorate and his service at Campaldino. Giovanni Villani mentions three noble epistles, the style of which he praises highly: one to the government of Florence, “complaining of his unjust exile,” which is probably the lost letter mentioned by Bruni; the second, to the Emperor Henry, and the third, to the Italian cardinals, have both been preserved. Flavio Biondo, in the fifteenth century, professes to have seen letters at Forlì dictated by Dante, notably one addressed by the poet, in his own name and on behalf of the exiled Bianchi, to Can Grande della Scala concerning the reply of the Florentines to the ambassadors of the Emperor.

There are now thirteen extant Latin letters ascribed to Dante. They have come down to us mainly in two fourteenth-century manuscripts; three have been preserved in Boccaccio’s handwriting in the Laurentian MS., known as the _Zibaldone Boccaccesco_; nine others in a Vatican MS., of which Boccaccio was perhaps the original compiler. Two of these latter have also been found in another MS. of the fourteenth century--the San Pantaleo MS. at Rome. No MS. of the letter to Can Grande is known earlier than the fifteenth century.[24]

EPISTLES I. AND II.--Epistles i. and ii. are connected with Count Alessandro da Romena, who, Bruni states, was appointed captain of the Bianchi in their meeting at Gargonza, and whom Dante brands with infamy in _Inferno_ xxx. The former is addressed in the name of Alessandro, the council and whole body of the White party, to the Cardinal Niccolò da Prato, legate of Benedict XI., assuring him of their gratitude and confidence, promising to refrain from hostilities in expectation of his good offices in the pacification of Florence. It may be accepted as an authentic document of 1304; but whether it was written by Dante, who had perhaps already left his fellow-exiles, is still open to question. The second is a letter of condolence to Alessandro’s nephews, Oberto and Guido, on the occasion of their uncle’s death, which probably occurred in the same year. Its authenticity is highly doubtful. Both letters are found only in the Vatican manuscript.

EPISTLES III. AND IV.--Epistles iii. and iv. are directly connected with the _Rime_. The third, which occurs in the Boccaccian autograph, seems to be to Cino da Pistoia, affectionate greetings from the Florentine exile to the Pistoian, explaining how one passion may be replaced by another in the soul. It was accompanied by a poem, which is identified with the sonnet, “Io sono stato con Amore insieme.” If authentic, its date would be not later than 1306, when Cino’s exile ended. The fourth letter, found in the Vatican MS., is addressed to the Marquis Moroello Malaspina, apparently from the Casentino, and describes in forcible language how the writer was suddenly enamoured of a woman’s beauty. It, too, was accompanied by a poem, evidently the canzone, “Amor, da che convien pur ch’io mi doglia.” The more probable date is 1307 or thereabouts.[25] The authenticity of these two letters is doubtful, but on the whole probable.

EPISTLES V., VI. AND VII.--Next come the three great political letters, glorified pamphlets on the enterprise of Henry of Luxemburg. Letter v., the manifesto to the Princes and Peoples of Italy, seems to have been written in September or October, 1310, before Henry crossed the Alps. It announces the advent of Henry, the bridegroom and glory of Italy, as bringing a new era of peace, declares the rightful authority and historical sanctity of the Empire, exhorting the peoples to free and joyous submission, and those who, like the writer himself, have suffered injustice to be merciful in their anticipated triumph. The letter, one of the noblest of Dante’s utterances, is a landmark in the growth of the national idea in Italy; rulers and peoples are admonished as members of one body; the good tidings are announced to the nation as a whole; the writer’s Italian citizenship is placed before his Florentine origin, when he subscribes himself: “The humble Italian, Dante Alighieri, a Florentine unjustly exiled.” It was in the bitter indignation caused by the Guelf opposition, the alliance between Florence and King Robert, and the doubt occasioned by the Emperor’s own delay in Lombardy, that Dante from the Casentino wrote the terrible Letters vi. and vii., on March 31st, 1311, to the Florentines, “the most wicked Florentines within,” and on April 17th to Henry himself, “the most sacred triumphant and only lord.” The former denounces the Florentines for their rebellion, their “shrinking from the yoke of liberty,” their attempt to make their civic life independent of that of Rome, and, in prophetic fashion, warns them of their coming destruction at the hands of “the prince who is the giver of the law.” In the latter, adopting the part of Curio towards Caesar (which he himself condemns in the _Inferno_), Dante urges the Emperor without further delay to turn his forces upon Florence, who “sharpens the horns of rebellion against Rome which made her in her own image and after her likeness.” The poet’s attitude is that of the Hebrew prophets; his motive, the conviction that his native city had adopted a line of policy opposed to the true interests of Italy. These three letters are contained in the Vatican MS.; Letters v. and vii. (of both of which early Italian translations are extant) also in the S. Pantaleo MS., and there is a third (fifteenth century) MS. of the letter to the Emperor.

EPISTLES VII.*, VII.** AND VII.***.--These three letters are a humble pendant to the three just considered. They are addressed to Margaret of Brabant, the wife of the Emperor Henry, in the name of the Countess of Battifolle (Gherardesca, daughter of Count Ugolino, married to Guido di Simone of the Conti Guidi). They are in answer to letters from the Empress, and, while containing mere expressions of loyal devotion and aspirations for the triumph of the imperial cause, their place in the Vatican MS. among the letters of Dante, together with the close resemblance in style and phraseology with the latter, has led to a general acceptance of the view that they were written by the poet. They were written in the spring of 1311, the third being dated from Poppi on May 18th.

EPISTLE VIII.--The letter to the Italian Cardinals, which is mentioned by Villani, and echoed by Petrarch in his canzone on Rome (“Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi”), is found only in Boccaccio’s autograph manuscript. It was written shortly after the death of Clement V. (April 20, 1314), when the cardinals were assembled in conclave at Carpentras; lamenting the desolation of the sacred city, it exhorts them, “for the bride of Christ, for the seat of the bride, which is Rome, for our Italy, and, to speak more fully, for the whole estate of those on pilgrimage on earth,” to restore the Apostolic See to its consecrated place. It is a noble protest of a devout and learned layman against a corrupt and ignorant clergy, of a Catholic and an Italian patriot against the papal desertion of Rome, in which Dante stands forth as the new Jeremiah, renewing for the sacred city of Christendom the lamentation of his Hebrew predecessor for Jerusalem. The letter presents striking analogies with the canto of the simonist popes (_Inf._ xix.), but is more moderate in tone, as the poet is here less denouncing than attempting to convert the cardinals to his point of view. There is extant a letter to the French King from Cardinal Napoleone Orsini (whom Dante admonishes by name in the epistle) with passages of a somewhat similar kind; it is tempting to suppose that the cardinal had actually received the exhortation and caught fire from the burning words of his fellow Italian.

EPISTLE IX.--The occasion of the letter refusing the amnesty has been already considered (chap. i.). It was probably written in the latter part of May 1315. In the Boccaccian autograph (in which alone it is found) it has no title; the traditional _Amico florentino_, “to a Florentine friend,” is a later addition. It is practically the only example of the poet’s personal correspondence that has been preserved. Barbi has thrown grave doubts upon the identification of the person to whom the letter is addressed with Teruccio di Manetto Donati, the brother of Dante’s wife; the nephew mentioned may perhaps be Andrea Poggi (_cf._ chap. i.) or, more probably, Niccolò Donati, the son of Gemma’s brother Foresino. It is here that Dante calls himself the preacher of justice, _vir praedicans iustitiam_, a claim which is the key of the _Commedia_ and may be traced from the canzone of the “Tre donne.” Nor is it without significance that the closing words of the letter, _nec panis deficiet_, “nor will bread fail me,” echo the same chapter of Isaiah (li. 14) which inspired the canzone in which Dante holds his exile as an honour.

EPISTLE X.--The Epistle to Can Grande stands apart from the others. Although eight MSS. are now known, none are earlier than the fifteenth century, and the two earliest contain no more than the opening sections. Some of the early commentators--Pietro Alighieri, Fra Guido da Pisa, and Boccaccio--were evidently acquainted with it; it was first expressly quoted by Filippo Villani in 1391, and published first in 1700, before any of Dante’s letters had seen the light, excepting the unsatisfactory Italian version of the Epistle to Henry of Luxemburg. If genuine, and its authenticity though much disputed seems now almost certain, it was probably written in 1318 or early in 1319, apparently before the first Eclogue.

Beginning with language of enthusiastic praise and grateful friendship, which recalls analogous passages in Canto xvii., the poet prepares to pay back the benefits he has received with the dedication of the _Paradiso_. So far (1-4), the epistolary form has been maintained, and this is the only portion of the letter found in the earlier MSS.; but now the writer assumes the office of a lecturer, and, with a quotation from the _Metaphysics_ of Aristotle, proceeds to give an introduction to the _Commedia_ and a commentary upon the first canto of the third cantica. He distinguishes the literal and allegorical meanings, defines the title of the whole (“The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Florentine by birth, not by character”) and of the part, and explains the difference between comedy and tragedy from a somewhat different point of view from that of the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ (ii. 4). The subject of the _Paradiso_, in the literal sense, is the state of the blessed after death; in the allegorical sense, man according as by meriting he is subject to Justice rewarding. “The end of the whole and of the part is to remove those living in this life from the state of misery, and to lead them to the state of felicity” (_Epist._ x. 15). Dante emphasises the ethical aspect of the poem: “The whole as well as the part was conceived, not for speculation, but with a practical object” (x. 16). Then follows a minute scholastic and mystical interpretation of the opening lines of the first canto of the _Paradiso_ in the literal sense, closing in an eloquent and very beautiful summary of the ascent through the spheres of Paradise to find true beatitude in the vision of the Divine Essence. Throughout this part of the letter Dante, when touching upon the details of his vision, always speaks of himself in the third person, evidently following the example of St. Paul in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. He unmistakably implies that he has actually been the recipient of some personal spiritual experience, which he is unable adequately to relate. That passionate self-reproach, which sounds in so many passages of the _Divina Commedia_, makes itself heard here too. If the invidious do not believe in the power of the human intellect so to transcend the measure of humanity, let them read the examples cited from Scripture and the mystical treatises of Richard of St. Victor, Bernard, Augustine. But, if the unworthiness of the speaker makes them question such an elevation, let them see in Daniel how Nebuchodonosor by divine inspiration had a vision against sinners: “For He who ‘maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust,’ sometimes in mercy for their conversion, sometimes in wrath for their punishment, reveals His glory, in greater or less measure, as He wills, to those who live never so evily” (_Epist._ x. 28). This section of the letter, for the student of mystical experience, is of the highest significance.

4. _The “Eclogae”_

Belonging, like the tenth Epistle, to that closing period of Dante’s life when he was engaged on the _Paradiso_, are two delightful pastoral poems in Latin hexameters. Here, too, we owe much to the piety of Boccaccio. The earliest and most authoritative of the five manuscripts is again in his handwriting, in the _Zibaldone Boccaccesco_ (where the poems are accompanied by explanatory notes), in the Laurentian Library.

Giovanni del Virgilio, a young lecturer and a poet, had written to Dante from Bologna a letter in Latin verse, expressing his profound admiration for the singer of the Commedia, but respectfully remonstrating with him for writing in Italian, and suggesting some stirring contemporary subjects as worthy matters for his muse: the death of Henry VII., the battle of Montecatini, a victory of Can Grande over the Paduans, the struggle by sea and land between King Robert of Naples and the Visconti for the possession of Genoa. The reference to this last event shows that the letter cannot have been written before July 1318, while a passage towards the close clearly indicates the early part of the following year. It further contains a pressing invitation to come and take the laurel crown at Bologna, or, at least, to answer the letter, “if it vex thee not, to have read first the feeble numbers which the rash goose cackles to the clear-voiced swan.”

Dante’s first Eclogue is the answer. Adopting the pastoral style, he himself and his companion Dino Perini (whom Boccaccio afterwards knew) appear as shepherds, Tityrus and Meliboeus, discussing the invitation from Mopsus. It was probably written in the spring or early summer of 1319. In a medley of generous praise and kindly banter, Dante declines to visit Bologna, “that knows not the gods,” and still hopes to receive the poet’s crown at Florence. When the _Paradiso_ is finished, then will it be time to think of ivy and laurel; and in the meanwhile, to convert Mopsus from his errors with respect to vernacular poetry, he will send him ten measures of milk fresh from the best-loved ewe of all his flock--ten cantos from the _Paradiso_, which evidently are not yet published, since the sheep is yet unmilked.

Mopsus in his answer expresses the intense admiration with which he and his fellow Arcadians have heard this song, and adopts the same style. Condoling with Dante on his unjust exile, he foresees his return home and reunion with Phyllis, who may perhaps be Gemma or (as Carducci suggested) an impersonification of Florence. But, in the meanwhile, pastoral pleasures and an enthusiastic welcome await him at Bologna, if Iolas (Guido da Polenta) will let him go. A reference to “Phrygian Muso” enables us to fix approximately the date; towards the beginning of September, 1319, Albertino Mussato, the Paduan poet and patriot, was at Bologna, endeavouring to get aid from the Guelf communes for his native city against Can Grande. Dante could hardly have with consistency accepted the invitation.

The writer of the notes on the Laurentian manuscript, whether Boccaccio himself or another, commenting upon a poem sent by Giovanni del Virgilio to Albertino Mussato, states that Dante delayed a year before answering this Eclogue, and that his reply was forwarded after his death by his son. His second Eclogue is in narrative form, and professes to be no more than the report by the writer of a conversation between Dante and his friends which is overheard by Guido da Polenta. A new associate of the poet’s last days is introduced to us: the shepherd Alphesiboeus, who is identified with Fiducio de’ Milotti of Certaldo, a distinguished physician resident at Ravenna. The tone is the same as that of the other Eclogue. Ravenna becomes the pastures of Pelorus, while Bologna is the Cyclops’ cave, to which Dante still refuses to go, for fear of Polyphemus, whose atrocities in the past are recorded.[26] And the crown expected now is, perhaps, no longer one which any earthly city can give: “For this illustrious head already the Pruner is hastening to award an everlasting garland.”

These two Eclogues are of priceless value. Nowhere else is such a comparatively bright picture of Dante’s closing days given us. The genuine and hearty laughter which greets Giovanni’s two letters, the generous tone of the supreme singer towards the young scholar poet, the kindly joking at the expense of Dino, make delightful reading and show us quite another side of Dante’s character. Giovanni’s first letter implies that the earlier parts of the _Commedia_ had not only been published, but had acquired a certain popularity. From Dante’s first Eclogue it follows that, by 1319, both _Inferno_ and _Purgatorio_ were completed, and that the _Paradiso_ was in preparation: “When the bodies that flow round the world, and they that dwell among the stars, shall be shown forth in my song, even as the lower realms, then shall I delight to crown my head with ivy and with laurel.” And after this the passage in the second Eclogue, written apparently in 1321, however we interpret it, has the same pathos and sanctity as Petrarch’s note on the last line of his _Triumph of Eternity_, or the abrupt ending of Shelley’s _Triumph of Life_:

Hoc illustre caput, cui iam frondator in alta
virgine perpetuas festinat cernere frondes.[27]

5. _The “Quaestio de Aqua et Terra”_

The _Quaestio de Aqua et Terra_--which purports to be a discourse or lecture delivered by Dante in the church of Sant’ Elena at Verona on January 20th, 1320--was first published in 1508 by an Augustinian friar, Giovan Benedetto Moncetti. No manuscript of it is known to exist, and there is no reference to the work or to the event in any earlier writer, though Antonio Pucci (after the middle of the fourteenth century) implies that Dante sought disputations of this kind. In this work the poet--in accordance with the physical science of his age--discusses the question of the relative position of the element earth and the element water upon the surface of the globe. The _Quaestio_ was until recently regarded as a fabrication of the early sixteenth century, but Moore in England and Vincenzo Biagi in Italy, mainly on the internal evidence of the work itself, have convinced many Dante scholars that it may be regarded with some probability as authentic.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] In the recently discovered codex at Berlin--the earliest of the four extant MSS.--the work is entitled _Rectorica Dantis_ (“The Rhetoric of Dante”), which would associate it with the similarly named treatises of the masters of the _ars dictandi_, such as Boncompagno da Signa, who wrote a _Rhetorica novissima_.

[20] This southern idiom (_nostrum ydioma_, i. 10)--from which Dante apparently regards both classical Latin and the modern romance languages derived--would be what we now call Vulgar Latin; but he restricts the phrase _vulgare latinum_ (or _latium_) to Italian, which--when discussing the rival claims of the three vernaculars to pre-eminence--he rightly recognises to be closest to classical Latin.

[21] _Equalium stantiarum sine responsorio ad unam sententiam tragica coniugatio_ (ii. 8). The _sine responsorio_ distinguishes the true canzone, _canzone distesa_, from the ballata, _canzone a ballo_, in which the _ripresa_ of from two to four lines was repeated after each stanza as well as sung as a prelude to the whole. Dante’s example is his own _Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore_, the poem which began “le nove rime” (_Purg._ xxiv. 49-51). The _tragica coniugatio_ is most nearly realised in English poetry by the ode, while the closest counterpart to the canzone with stanzas divisible into metrical periods is offered by Spenser’s _Epithalamion_. The sestina has been employed by English poets from the Elizabethans to Swinburne and Rudyard Kipling.

[22] Cipolla showed that the matter of the first two books more directly controverts the anti-imperialist and anti-Roman arguments of the French political writers of the beginning of the fourteenth century--writers like the Dominican, John of Paris. But these or similar views were now being adduced by Robert of Naples and supported by Clement V.

[23] These two ends are the two cities--the earthly and the heavenly--of St. Augustine’s _De Civitate Dei_; but the earthly city, blessedness of this life, is more significant for Dante than it was for Augustine. Felicity in peace and freedom is in some sort man’s right: _Che è quello per che esso è nato_ (_Conv._ iv. 4).

[24] For the whole history of the Letters, the reader is referred to Dr. Paget Toynbee’s introduction, _Dantis Alagherii Epistolae_, Oxford, 1920.

[25] Torraca would assign it to 1311.

[26] Polyphemus, as Biscaro has shown, is most probably Fulcieri da Calboli, the ferocious podestà of Florence in 1303, who had been elected Captain of the People at Bologna for the first six months of 1321 (his predecessor having died in office). _Cf. Ecl._ ii. (iv.) 76-83 with _Purg._ xiv. 58-66. See _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_, lxxxi. p. 128. Others have taken the person meant as Robert of Naples, or, with Ricci, a kinsman of Venedico Caccianemico whom Dante had covered with infamy in _Inf._ xviii.

[27] “This illustrious head, for which the Pruner is already hastening to select unwithering leaves from the noble laurel,” or “to decree an everlasting garland in the divine justice,” according to whether the Virgin is taken as Daphne or Astraea.