Dante Alighieri Read Free Page B

proficient.
    Â Â Â Â  A few details of Dante’s public life in Florence have been preserved in various documents in the Florentine archives. 23 It is recorded 24 that on 6 July, 1295, he gave his opinion in favour of certain proposed modifications of the “Ordinamenti di Giustizia,” ordinances against the power of the nobles in Florence, which had been enacted a couple of years before. On 14 December of the same year he took part in the bi-monthly election of Priors; and on 5 June, 1296, he spoke in the Council of the Hundred (“Consiglio dei Cento”). In the spring of 1300 he went as ambassador to San Gemignano, a town about ten miles from Siena, to announce that an assembly was to be held for the purpose of electing a new captain of the Guelf League of Tuscany, and to invite the citizens of San Gemignano to send representatives. The room in the Palazzo of San Gemignano, where Dante was received as ambassador to Florence, and where he spoke in discharge of his office six hundred years ago, is still preserved in much the same condition in which it was on that occasion.

    SAN GEMIGNANO
    Â Â Â Â  The contemporary record 25 of the event, which, like all similar records of that time, is in Latin, tells how “on 8 May the General Council of the commonwealth and people of San Gemignano having been convoked and assembled in the palace of the said commonwealth by the sounding of a bell and by the voice of the crier, according to custom, at the summons of the noble and valiant knight, Messer Mino de’ Tolomei of Siena, the honourable Podestà of the commonwealth and people of the said city of San Gemignano, . . . the noble Dante Alighieri, ambassador of the commonwealth of Florence, explained to the assembled Council on behalf of the said commonwealth how it was expedient at that time for all the cities of the Tuscan League to hold a parliament and discussion in a certain place for the election and confirmation of a new Captain, and how further it was expedient that the appointed syndics and ambassadors of the said cities should assemble themselves together for the despatch of the said business”. It appears that Dante’s mission was successful, for the record goes on to state that the proposition of the Florentine ambassador, having been debated, was approved and ratified by the Council.
    Â Â Â Â  A few weeks after his return from San GemignanoDante was elected to serve as one of the six Priors, for the two months from 15 June to 15 August, this being the highest office in the Republic of Florence. 26 “From this priorate,” says Leonardi Bruni, “sprang Dante’s exile from Florence, and all the adverse fortunes of his life as he himself writes in one of his letters, the words of which are as follows: ‘All my woes and all my misfortunes had their origin and commencement with my unlucky election to the priorate; of which priorate, although I was not worthy in respect of worldly wisdom, yet in respect of loyalty and of years I was not unworthy of it; inasmuch as ten years had passed since the battle of Campaldino, where the Ghibelline party was almost entirely broken and brought to an end, on which occasion I was present, not inexperienced in arms, and was in great fear, and afterwards greatly exultant, by reason of the varying fortunes of that battle.’ These are his words.” 27
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    Â Â Â Â  1 When he meets Brunetto in Hell Dante says to him: “In my mind is fixed the dear and kind fatherly image of you, when in the world you from time to time taught me how man becomes eternal” (
Inferno
, xv.82-5). This probably means nothing more than that Dante learned much from Brunetto’s
Trèsor
, and especially from the compendium of the
Ethics
of Aristotle which it contains.
    Â Â Â Â  2
Vita Nuova
, § 3, 11. 69-71: “I had already learned of myself the art of setting words in rime”.
    Â Â Â Â  3