Dante Alighieri (8 page)

    
Nine years later, when they were both in their eighteenth year, that is to say in 1283, Dante saw Beatrice dressed all in pure white, walking in the street between two ladies older than herself. On this occasion she turned her eyes upon Dante, and saluted him. After this greeting, which, he says, seemed to reveal to him the utmost limits of happiness, Dante retired to the solitude of his own chamber and sat himself down to think of Beatrice. And as he sat thinking he fell asleep, and had a marvellous vision, whereon he composed a sonnet beginning

which is his earliest known composition. This sonnet he sent to various famous poets of the day, and among those from whom he received replies was Guido Cavalcanti, who from this time became Dante's most intimate friend.
³⁷

    
Later on, Dante meanwhile, in order to conceal his love for Beatrice, having paid attentions to another lady, Beatrice denied him her salutation, which plunged him into the deepest grief.
³⁸
The next time he saw her was at a wedding-feast, whither he had been taken by a friend, and on this occasion his emotion so overcame him that his confusion was remarked, and the ladies, including Beatrice herself, whispered and mocked at him, whereupon his friend,
perceiving his distress, led him from the house.
³⁹
This episode may perhaps be connected with the marriage of Beatrice Portinari, to which Dante never directly refers in the
Vita Nuova
, but which is known to have taken place before the year 1288, her husband being Simone de' Bardi,
⁴⁰
a member of one of the great banking-houses of Florence.
⁴¹

    
Not long after this Dante learned of the death of Beatrice's father, Folco Portinari, whom he describes as a man “of exceeding goodness,”
⁴²
and who was a personage of no little importance in Florence, for he had held high office in the city, and had several times served as Prior.
⁴³
He was also a great public benefactor, for in June, 1288, the same year in which he made his will, he had founded the well-known hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence.
⁴⁴
Folco's death, and the grief of Beatrice for him, brought into Dante's mind the thought that one day Beatrice herself too must die; and in a very short time his forebodings were realised. Beatrice died, within six months of her father, in June, 1290, just on the completion of her twenty-fourth year.
⁴⁵
Dante was for a time over-whelmed
with grief,
⁴⁶
but after a while he devoted himself to the study of philosophy, and having thereby regained his peace of mind, he made the resolve, which is recorded at the conclusion of the
Vita Nuova
, that, should his life be spared, he would write of Beatrice what had never yet been written of any woman, a resolve which was carried into execution in the
Divina Commedia
.

    
A beautiful canzone on the death of Beatrice was addressed to Dante by his friend Cino da Pistoja,
⁴⁷
one of the
“famosi trovatori,” to whom Dante had sent his earliest sonnet.
⁴⁸
In this canzone, from which it appears that Dante in his despair had been tempted to seek death, Cino strives to console him with the thought that Beatrice is glorified in heaven, where she watches over him and recalls his devotion to her on earth:—

    
Cino, who subsequently wrote a canzone on the death of Dante himself,
⁵⁰
was one of several friends of his youth with whom Dante held a poetical correspondence. As in the case of Guido Cavalcanti,
⁵¹
this friendship doubtless owed its origin to the fact of Dante's having sent to him the sonnet referred to above, the first in the
Vita Nuova
, to which Cino returned a sonnet in reply.
⁵²
At least five other sonnets addressed by Cino to Dante have been preserved,
⁵³
and two of Dante's to him,
⁵⁴
besides a Latin letter on a subject connected with love.
⁵⁵

    
Guido Cavalcanti,
⁵⁶
one of the most distinguished poets of the day, and Dante's earliest friend, addressed five sonnets to Dante
⁵⁷
(including his reply to Dante's first sonnet), mostly on the subject of love; but one of them contains a severe reproof to Dante for falling away from his former high standard of life:—

    
It is supposed that Guido is here referring to some moral lapse on Dante's part, consequent on his alleged faithlessness to the memory of Beatrice;
⁵⁹
but it is possible that what Guido had in mind was Dante's degrading intercourse with such company as Forese Donati,
⁶⁰
his poetical correspondence with whom (written probably within a year or two of the death of Beatrice) has been already mentioned.
⁶¹
The tone of this correspondence, the authenticity of which has been questioned, but which in the face of the evidence it is difficult not to accept,
⁶²
gives an unpleasing impression both of Forese and of Dante, teeming as it does with personalities and abusive recriminations. In after years, we gather, Dante recalled this episode of his early career with bitter shame. “If thou bring back to mind,” he says to Forese when they meet in Purgatory,

It was to Guido Cavalcanti, while Beatrice was yet alive, that Dante addressed that charming sonnet (known to English readers as “The Boat of Love”)
⁶⁴
in which he imagines Guido, Lapo Gianni, and himself wafted overseas in a boat with their respective ladies:—

 

    
¹
See Genealogical Table at end of volume (
Appendix
A).

    
²
From the reference in
Paradiso
, xxii. 110 ff. it follows that Dante must have been born towards the end of the month, at any rate later than the 21st (see Casini,
in loc
.).

    
³
The battle of Benevento, according to our reckoning, was fought on 26 February, 1266; but as the Florentine year began on 25 March, according to their reckoning it was fought on 26 February, 1265. The date according to both styles is indicated by writing 26 February,
, where the
lower
figure represents the
modem
, and the
upper
figure the
old
, method of reckoning.

    
⁴
It may be noted that Dante's intimacies were for the most part among the Guelfs: his mentor, Brunetto Latino, was a Guelf; his friend, Guido Cavalcanti, was a Guelf; his wife, Gemma Donati, was a Guelf; and his uncle Burnetto fought on the Guelf side at the battle of Montaperti. Further, according to Filippo Villani (in the preface to his Latin commentary on the first canto of the
Inferno
, cap. xxii.), Dante was intimate with Filippo's uncle, Giovanni Villani, the chronicler, who was a staunch Guelf: “Patruus meus Johannes Villani hystoricus . . . Danti fuit amicus et sotius.” On the other hand, his mother is conjectured to have belonged to the Ghibelline family of the Abati; while his stepmother was one of the Guelf Cialuffi.