The Story of Mankind [78]
this single fact,
that they had been kind to a poet in his misery. During the
many years of exile, Dante felt compelled to justify himself
and his actions when he had been a political leader in his
home-town, and when he had spent his days walking along
the banks of the Arno that he might catch a glimpse of the
lovely Beatrice Portinari, who died the wife of another man, a
dozen years before the Ghibelline disaster.
He had failed in the ambitions of his career. He had
faithfully served the town of is birth and before a corrupt
court he had been accused of stealing the public funds and
had been condemned to be burned alive should he venture
back within the realm of the city of Florence. To clear
himself before his own conscience and before his contemporaries,
Dante then created an Imaginary World and with great
detail he described the circumstances which had led to
his defeat and depicted the hopeless condition of greed and lust
and hatred which had turned his fair and beloved Italy into a
battlefield for the pitiless mercenaries of wicked and selfish
tyrants.
He tells us how on the Thursday before Easter of the year
1300 he had lost his way in a dense forest and how he found
his path barred by a leopard and a lion and a wolf. He gave
himself up for lost when a white figure appeared amidst the
trees. It was Virgil, the Roman poet and philosopher, sent
upon his errand of mercy by the Blessed Virgin and by Beatrice,
who from high Heaven watched over the fate of her
true lover. Virgil then takes Dante through Purgatory and
through Hell. Deeper and deeper the path leads them until
they reach the lowest pit where Lucifer himself stands frozen
into the eternal ice surrounded by the most terrible of sinners,
traitors and liars and those who have achieved fame and
success by lies and by deceit. But before the two wanderers
have reached this terrible spot, Dante has met all those who
in some way or other have played a role in the history of his
beloved city. Emperors and Popes, dashing knights and
whining usurers, they are all there, doomed to eternal punishment
or awaiting the day of deliverance, when they shall
leave Purgatory for Heaven.
It is a curious story. It is a handbook of everything the
people of the thirteenth century did and felt and feared and
prayed for. Through it all moves the figure of the lonely
Florentine exile, forever followed by the shadow of his own
despair.
And behold! when the gates of death were closing upon
the sad poet of the Middle Ages, the portals of life swung
open to the child who was to be the first of the men of the
Renaissance. That was Francesco Petrarca, the son of the
notary public of the little town of Arezzo.
Francesco's father had belonged to the same political party
as Dante. He too had been exiled and thus it happened that
Petrarca (or Petrarch, as we call him) was born away from
Florence. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Montpellier
in France that he might become a lawyer like his father. But
the boy did not want to be a jurist. He hated the law. He
wanted to be a scholar and a poet--and because he wanted to
be a scholar and a poet beyond everything else, he became one,
as people of a strong will are apt to do. He made long
voyages, copying manuscripts in Flanders and in the cloisters
along the Rhine and in Paris and Liege and finally in Rome.
Then he went to live in a lonely valley of the wild mountains
of Vaucluse, and there he studied and wrote and soon he had
become so famous for his verse and for his learning that both
the University of Paris and the king of Naples invited him
to come and teach their students and subjects. On the way
to his new job, he was obliged to pass through Rome. The
people had heard of his fame as an editor of half-forgotten
Roman authors. They decided to honour him and in the
ancient forum of the Imperial City, Petrarch was crowned
that they had been kind to a poet in his misery. During the
many years of exile, Dante felt compelled to justify himself
and his actions when he had been a political leader in his
home-town, and when he had spent his days walking along
the banks of the Arno that he might catch a glimpse of the
lovely Beatrice Portinari, who died the wife of another man, a
dozen years before the Ghibelline disaster.
He had failed in the ambitions of his career. He had
faithfully served the town of is birth and before a corrupt
court he had been accused of stealing the public funds and
had been condemned to be burned alive should he venture
back within the realm of the city of Florence. To clear
himself before his own conscience and before his contemporaries,
Dante then created an Imaginary World and with great
detail he described the circumstances which had led to
his defeat and depicted the hopeless condition of greed and lust
and hatred which had turned his fair and beloved Italy into a
battlefield for the pitiless mercenaries of wicked and selfish
tyrants.
He tells us how on the Thursday before Easter of the year
1300 he had lost his way in a dense forest and how he found
his path barred by a leopard and a lion and a wolf. He gave
himself up for lost when a white figure appeared amidst the
trees. It was Virgil, the Roman poet and philosopher, sent
upon his errand of mercy by the Blessed Virgin and by Beatrice,
who from high Heaven watched over the fate of her
true lover. Virgil then takes Dante through Purgatory and
through Hell. Deeper and deeper the path leads them until
they reach the lowest pit where Lucifer himself stands frozen
into the eternal ice surrounded by the most terrible of sinners,
traitors and liars and those who have achieved fame and
success by lies and by deceit. But before the two wanderers
have reached this terrible spot, Dante has met all those who
in some way or other have played a role in the history of his
beloved city. Emperors and Popes, dashing knights and
whining usurers, they are all there, doomed to eternal punishment
or awaiting the day of deliverance, when they shall
leave Purgatory for Heaven.
It is a curious story. It is a handbook of everything the
people of the thirteenth century did and felt and feared and
prayed for. Through it all moves the figure of the lonely
Florentine exile, forever followed by the shadow of his own
despair.
And behold! when the gates of death were closing upon
the sad poet of the Middle Ages, the portals of life swung
open to the child who was to be the first of the men of the
Renaissance. That was Francesco Petrarca, the son of the
notary public of the little town of Arezzo.
Francesco's father had belonged to the same political party
as Dante. He too had been exiled and thus it happened that
Petrarca (or Petrarch, as we call him) was born away from
Florence. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Montpellier
in France that he might become a lawyer like his father. But
the boy did not want to be a jurist. He hated the law. He
wanted to be a scholar and a poet--and because he wanted to
be a scholar and a poet beyond everything else, he became one,
as people of a strong will are apt to do. He made long
voyages, copying manuscripts in Flanders and in the cloisters
along the Rhine and in Paris and Liege and finally in Rome.
Then he went to live in a lonely valley of the wild mountains
of Vaucluse, and there he studied and wrote and soon he had
become so famous for his verse and for his learning that both
the University of Paris and the king of Naples invited him
to come and teach their students and subjects. On the way
to his new job, he was obliged to pass through Rome. The
people had heard of his fame as an editor of half-forgotten
Roman authors. They decided to honour him and in the
ancient forum of the Imperial City, Petrarch was crowned