Dante Alighieri Read Free Page A

concludes his account of this ill-assorted match, as at any rate he supposed it to have been, with the following words : “Certainly I do not affirm that these things happened in Dante’s case, for I do not know. But, at any rate, whether that be the truth or not, once Dante was separated from her who had been given to console him in his grief, he never would come where she was, nor would he ever allow her to come to him.” 13
    Â Â Â Â  This is an explicit statement, and it is probable that Boccaccio, who was in communication with members of Dante’s family, did not make it without some authority. At any rate, whatever the domestic relations between Dante and Gemma may have been, it is certain that they had a family of four children, all of whom were born in Florence before the year 1302. These children were twosons, Pietro and Jacopo, and two daughters, Antonia and Beatrice. Pietro, the eldest son, who was the author of a commentary on the
Divina Commedia
, 14 became a lawyer, and died in Treviso in 1364. 15 Jacopo, who also wrote a commentary on the
Commedia
(or at any rate on the
Inferno
) 16 and a didactic poem called
Il Dottrinale
, entered the Church, became a canon in the diocese of Verona, and died before 1349. Of Antonia it is only known that she was still alive in 1332. Beatrice became a nun in the Conventof Santo Stefano dell’ Uliva at Ravenna, where in 1350 she was presented by Boccaccio with the sum of ten gold florins on behalf of the Capitani di Or San Michele of Florence. 17 She died before 1370, in which year there is a record of the payment of a bequest of hers of three gold ducats to the. convent where she had passed her days. 18 Three of Dante’s children, Pietro, Jacopo, and Beatrice, lived with him during the last three or four years of his life at Ravenna. Gemma, who, as we have seen, is supposed never to have rejoined Dante after his exile from Florence, was still living in 1332, eleven years after Dante’s death.
    Â Â Â Â  At some period not long after the death of Beatrice Portinari, Dante appears to have been entangled in an amour of a more or less discreditable nature. It seems clear from the language used to Dante by Beatrice in the
Divina Commedia
that this must have been the case. She says that as soon as she was dead and gone, Dante became unfaithful to her, and “gave himself to another,” whereby “he fell so low” that she despaired of his salvation. 19 The names of several ladies which occur in Dante’s lyrical poems have been connected with this charge; and there can be little doubt that some similar entanglement took place at Lucca after his exile, as appears from the account of Dante’s meeting with the Lucchese poet, Bonagiunta, in Purgatory. 20
    Â Â Â Â  In 1295 or 1296, whether before or after his marriage we have no means of ascertaining, Dante, in order toqualify himself for the higher offices in the government of Florence, enrolled himself in the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries, 21 he having now reached the age at which, by the Florentine law, he was entitled to exercise the full rights of citizenship. This was Dante’s first step in his political career, which was destined within a few years to lead him into lifelong exile from his native city. The Guild selected by Dante was one of the wealthiest and most important in Florence, concerned as it was with the costly products of the East, in which were included not only spices and drugs, but also pearls, precious stones, and other valuables. Dante’s choice of this particular Guild, however, may perhaps be explained by the fact that in those days books also were included among the wares dealt in by apothecaries; and further, to this Guild were attached those who practised the art of painting, an art which, it may be gathered, had special attractions for Dante, and in which, as we have already seen, 22 he was to some extent a