CANTO I. there are two towns of the name of Feltro, and Verona lies between them; a mode of interpreting Feltri known as early as the days of Peter Alighieri, although indeed he only mentions it to condemn it: dicunt quidam hoc esse in partibus Lombardiæ et Romandiola, inter civitatem Feltri et montem Feltri. This is usually corroborated by stating, that Can was a chief protector of our poet and that he dedicated his Paradise to Can. But, although we may go with the momentary stream, so far as to concede that the 'hound' may mean Can, in the absence of any thing more plausible, we must not permit our condescension for an hypothesis totally modern, and which, I repeat it, is without a shadow of any ancient authority, to lead us so wrong as to imagine (with those who disregard dates) that the present passage was composed in gratitude for hospitality received from Can. It were to err much; for it was in all probability written before Can was five years old, and certainly before Dante had had any opportunity of appreciating his character. Even those, who, boldly contradicting Boccaccio, deny that any part of this poem was begun in Florence previous to its authors exile in 1302, must still allow, that this entire Canticle, Hell, was finished, before 1308; and this latter is the earliest period that can possibly be assigned for Dante's visit to Verona, consistently with the shortest time in which his journeys could be performed; as Pelli clearly de 46 sense, COMMENT CANTO I. monstrates. Even supposing he, on that occasion, remained two years and a half at the Veronese court, without ever quitting it, (and it is in this of his having tarried no where else so long throughout his exile, and in this sense alone, that we are hereafter to receive his expression 'principal inn' (1) when speaking of Verona) yet these verses could allude to no such hospitality; since they were written before his going there. If then they refer to Can at all, they must have preceded his kindness to their author. It is most probable they were addressed to Alberto, whom they complimented by predicting the future glories of his youngest and infant child, Can. Alberto died in 1301; previous to which year, I am of opinion, that this Canto was, at least, sketched out ——— though this is not the place to prove it. Dante might have been at Verona, for a day or two, or two, before exiled; or Alberto at Florence; or the Sovereign of Verona and a Florentine Chieftain been well acquainted politically, without ever having met; or these verses might have been sent to the elder brothers, Bartolomeo and Alboino, complimenting them through the youngest, Can: or, infine, they might possibly have been so to this last himself; but it could have been only while he was quite a boy and before Dante came to reside in his city and knew him personally. This shows how ground "CANTO I. lessly Venturi and other annotators represent the passage as a poet's flattery of his patron; and how inapplicable are all the flourishes of the Marchese Maffei and his allies (1); who, it must be confessed, are not the only Italians that betray the narrow, pseudopatriotism of being ready to sacrifice the fame of their country in order to foster the pretensions of some single spot in it. The best excuse an advocate could make for them would be to say, that they had not sufficiently studied the subject on which they write: and it were to arraign them of strange negligence. Since this Can, preposterously entitled the great, and his panegyrists have been mentioned, let me, in justice to Dante's reputation as a man, though sadly against it as an astrologer, mention the truth of the matter and how miserably he mistook, when he foretold either hospitality or political achievements. In truth he was soon undeceived. He, as I have said, came to Verona, an exile, in 1308; where he found the father and eldest son dead, and Alboino and Can joint sovereigns. His treatment by the former of these two was probably feeling and honorable, or he could not have staid there even as long as he did; but quite the reverse that of the younger brother, then in his seventeenth year, at whose ostentatious board buffoons and petty tyrants (1) Verona Illustr. P. 2. 1. 2. p. 50-6. Risorgimento. Capo quinto. Istoria di Verona. t. 1. p. 58a. address (made years before and probably while he was himself in the zenith of prosperity) might have insured him something like a creditor's claim to protection, in his subsequent adversity. Hence he never remained with this youth after he had become sole lord, an event that occurred in 1311, by Alboino's decease; and we find Dante in Tuscany as early as April the sixteenth of that very year, writing to the Emperor one of the few of his letters which are still extant (2). At that date, Can still wanted eleven months of being of age; and Dante never paid any subsequent visit to Verona, except perhaps for a few days in June 1320 to maintain a public disputation, as Cinelli, Negri and others pretend on a very slender authority, (3) — a latin pamphlet printed in Venice, with Dante's name in the title page, but little other proof of authenticity (4). His rambles are hard to follow distinctly; yet, from their multitude and the documents that remain, we see, he did not put the hospitality of any one to a severe trial. His longer sojourns were in Ravenna. In 1313 he was in Venice and Paris and Avignon and, perhaps, Oxford, in 1314 in Ravenna, in Friuli in 1317, in (1) Petrarca. Rer. Mem. 1. 4. Cinthio Geraldi. p. 209. (2) Prose. p. 211. (3) Apost. Zeno. Lett. (4) Quaestio etc. de aqua et terra. CANTO I. 1318 in Gubbio, in 1319 in Ravenna, in Venice in 1321 (1) and, on his return to Ravenna, in September of that year he died. (2) Maffei then confounds chronology, in order to obtain Verona the exclusive credit of being the birthplace of the Divine Comedy; and defames its author, to varnish up a paltry despot. This even might be considered as rather the effect of inadvertence, than of voluntary mistatement, if he had not shown that he had rcad the dedication of Paradise, by quoting it to prove Dante's sense of obligation to Can. Now this dedication alone suffices to refute all the Marquis's stories about the pension allowed by that prince to the poet; for it expressly declares that Dante, far from having acquired opulence, was in pecuniary distress; it contains not a word that can be tortured into a confession of his being pensioned by Can, whom he had left for ever years before; and when it mentions his poverty, it is in the honest tone of a man, who, without expecting or perhaps being willing to receive a favour from the personage to whom he writes, regrets candidly that his private difficulties render him less fit for the service of the public. 'It prevents me from composing a Comment on my poem as well as other works that might be of general utility' - urget (1) Prose. 216. Eloq. Ital. 1. 11. cap. 20. — p. 1. 7. — Lami. Delicia Erudit. t. xvn. Com. Urban. 1. xxI. — Serravalle ap. Cancel. (2) Manetti, Villani, Boccaccio, ec. ec. - Bon. Stor. Trivi. Pelli. p. 116. - Volterrani. P. 44. |