GANTO VI.

Cerchi his nose (1). Thus when Dante commenced Prior on the fifteenth of June, he found the streets filled with riot and blood; (exactly as Ciacco predicts, who is now speaking, we must recollect, on the night of the eighth of April (2)) and insubordination had reached such a height, and so little respect was paid either to laws or magistrates, that it was with the utmost difficulty the Whites could be prevented from sacking the houses of the Blacks even at broad noon-day. This atrocity was attempted on return from a burial; and it would certainly have been effected, had not the chief of the Blacks, Corso Donati, relied more on individual courage than on succour from Government: add to all this, a Papal legate, who was sent to pacify the City, left it the seeds of still worse disorder by leaving it his interdiction. Nevertheless our poet contrived to keep the State from falling to pieces under his administration; and those two months, (for the Priorship never conti. nued longer) as well as the remainder of the year, passed over unsullied by at least the most reprehensible of treasons, that of madly applying for foreign force. Scarce an hour however elapsed without some infringement of the public tran

(1) Et, ut breviter dicam, uno sero ad unum tripudium Dominarum orta lite inter aliquos de utraque parte, fuit amputatus nasus uni Recoverino de Circulis. Benvenuti Im. ap. Mur. Antiq. Ital. Vol. 1. 1040.

(2) Hell, Comment, Canto 11. p. 67.

CANTO VI.

quillity (1); and even the remedy of a dungeon only occasioned additional crimes: for many leaders of both factions being thrown into prison, the Black prisoners bribed the Jailor and had all the White ones poisoned in a dish of pudding, or flummery (2). But in the February of 1301 the state of things became much worse; and to such extremities of mutual massacre had the rival parties advanced, ere the close of the month, that the Blacks resolved to dispatch an Ambassador to the Pope in order to engage him to procure them the aid of a French army, on the stipulation that they would deliver up the city to any Prince, or King, his Holiness might appoint. The Priors then in office alarmed at the discovery of such a nefarious conspiracy, sent for Dante whom (although he had six months before ceased his ministerial functions and relapsed

(1)For twenty-eight years' (say the Pistoiese Chroniclers, and Florence was certainly not less anarchical than Pistoja ) ' the battles, murders, and burnings continued in town and country, day and night; more than once men were slain not only in presence of the chief magistrate but in the very town hall at noon while the Judge, the Gonfaloniere, and the Podestà were presiding there with their guards, nor could these attempt to prevent such violence; so great the force of the offenders. At last the Podestà finding his orders disregarded and not even his person secure from insult, laid down his wand of office and judging such people totally unworthy of either laws or Magistrates went away, and left them free to butcher one another without any legal incumbrance'... in presenza del Giudice, del Podestà, e di sua famiglia l'uccise, non potendo cosa alcuna dalla famiglia del Podestà essergli contrastata, per la gente che avea seco.... sicchè il Podestà puose la bacchetta della Podesteria in terra, e rifiutò la Signoria, e si parti. M. A. Salvi, delle Hist. di Pistoia, Vol. 1. p. 264.—Ist. Pist. ap. Rer. Ital. Scrip. Vol. x1. p. 368–373.

(2) ☀ . . in un migliaccio.... Priorista Fiorentino, p. 42.

CANTO VI.

into a private station) they still regarded as the properest person they could consult: and his advice to sound the tocsin, arm the lower classes of the people, and instantly exile the chiefs of both those unprincipled parties, was as promptly executed, as wisely suggested (1). The Blacks were banished into the neighbourhood of Perugia, where they continued the plots they had begun to hatch; for which purpose their Chief, Corso Donati, repaired secretly to Rome: the Whites were driven to Sarzana, where they suffered shockingly from the mal' aria; so that, upon some of them dying, the rest were permitted to return to Florence about five weeks after they had quitted it. This return was attributed by many to the corrupt influence of money; but the fact is easy to be accounted for without corruption; for the Government had far less cause to reprehend the Whites, who were not guilty of treasonable tampering with foreigners,

(1) Le poëte Dante était un des Prieurs qui prononcèrent cette sentence. Sismondi, Hist. des Repub. Ital. Vol. iv. p 110. Here is an inaccuracy. Dante was no longer one of the Priors - his Priorship was from June 15 to August 15 of 1300, Priorista Fiorentino, p. 41. But his being consulted by the Priors, their following his advice, and his being dispatched immediately after as Ambassador to Rome in order to endeavour to counteract the treasonable intrigues of Donati and the Blacks, are so many proofs of his high political consequence. It was on this occasion he was over-heard saying to himself—if I go, who is there to remain? and, if I remain, who is there to go?' He was afterwards accused of this as of inordinate vanity. His presence was indeed equally necessary both at Florence and Rome: yet even could he have been in both places at once, the times were so turbulent it would have availed little.

CANTO VI.

and it had already doubly chastised them by condemning them to a sickly residence (1). Dante had long ceased to be a Prior; nor does it appear that he had been again consulted by the Priors; otherwise it is reasonable to conclude that he would have reiterated his former advice, to keep the leaders of both factions out of Florence; and would have contented himself with simply transferring the Whites to some less unhealthy place of exile. Amongst these was his friend Guido Cavalcanti; who expired shortly after his arrival at home, in consequence of the Sarzana fever (2). Guido's being a White is no proof however of Dante's being partial to the Whites; since it had not prevented his recommending the sentencing of both them and him to that banishment which was cause of his death. As speciously might he have been suspected of partiality in favour of the Blacks; because his wife was a Donati, and the worldly interests both of himself and his numerous offspring were intimately connected with the triumph of the Blacks. An unprejudiced person will consider his conduct as an instance of that all-devoted patriotism rarely to be found out of Greece and Rome at their best times; and will observe, that, in counselling the

(1) Even Dino Compagni though allied with the Blacks (and since he was himself one of the government, no one better knew the true state of things) acknowledges frequently the lesser culpability of the Whites. Ist. Fior. Lib. 1.

(2) Tornò malato Guido Cavalcanti di che morio, e di lui fu gran dannaggio. Gio. Villani, Lib. vIII. cap. 41.

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banishing of the leading partisans on both sides, he sacrificed to his country, on the one hand his bosom-friend, and on the other the fortunes of himself and family. Unfortunately the Whites though less traitorous, were not less sanguinary and impetuous than their rivals; having got entrance into Florence anew, they soon found means to render themselves dominant, and, expelling the Blacks altogether, sent them to join their exiled leaders. This is the first banishment to which Ciacco alludes when saying 'One wild faction shall expel her rival;' and it took place in June', 1301. The epithet wild (selvaggia) was usually given to the Whites, to express the rustic origin of their chiefs, the Cerchi, conformably to what I have already stated: and that this expulsion was attended with much ' rapine,' (con molta offensione) is also an historical fact. The Black chieftain, Corso Donati, having escaped from Perugia to Rome, engaged Boniface vin. (the Pope alluded to in the verses 'whose faithless sail, etc'v. LXVIII tal che testè piaggia) to persuade the brother of Phillip the fair of France, Charles Valois, or lackland, to go against Florence, and make the Blacks masters of the city, under pretence of pacifying it. His Holiness, missing no occasion of exercising a temporal interference, willingly consented; and the French Prince, then about to winter at Rome previous to his Neapolitan expedition (1), had no (1) Yet the chroniclers of Pistoia ( Rer. Ital. Scrip. Vol, xi. p. 379.