325 CHAPTER VII. TIME AND SPACE. DINO COMPAGNI-THE VILLANI-FROISSART-LOPEZ AYALA-RAMON MUNTANER-MARCO POLO-SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE. Dino Compagni. IT is a sign of the solidarity of European letters that you cannot talk about Chaucer without talking in the same breath about Boccaccio. In discussing the Canterbury Tales I have not quitted Boccaccio, and therefore cannot be said to return to him; but other comparisons render it necessary that I should take leave, at least for a spell, of Chaucer. From Boccaccio and his brother novelists, from Franco Sacchetti especially, to Dino and the Villani is but a step. Sacchetti paints his times, and so does Dino Compagni. The great difference between them is that Dino lived earlier, and did survive to witness the apotheosis of the novel—in his day a slight, unimportant class-under the hand of Boccaccio. He was forced to depend, therefore, on such patterns of Italian prose- rude chronicles, translations, treatises-as might then be had. But neither Sacchetti nor Compagni can be regarded strictly as professional writers. Both were men of affairs. romance. Dino's Chronicle of the Things that Happened in his Times, whether you consider it with reference An important to its external fortunes or in respect of controversy. its matter, has much the interest of a The reputed author of an uninspired allegorical poem, the Intelligenzia, and of certain lyrics. about which a similar verdict must be entered, Compagni figures in his own narrative as a Florentine of mark. Other historians do not convey quite this impression. Indeed, they are silent concerning him. For three or four centuries he was a lost name, a vanished memory. All at once, after this long oblivion, his fame began to grow, until now, among literary folk, he is one of the lares et penates of his native city. Not to know Dino Compagni argues yourself ignorant of an exciting and sanguinary controversy, the end of which is not yet. The celebrity of the man is bound up with that of his chronicle, which, in 1640, underwent a resurrection. In that year its existence was notified by Federigo Ubaldini, but the MS. remained unprinted until the next century. In 1858 Pietro Fanfani sounded the signal for the fray by uttering in his review Il Piovano Arlotta the ominous word "apocryphal." Dino found a champion in M. Hillebrand, who, in answer to Signor Fanfani, published a book entitled Dino Compagni, étude historique et littéraire sur l'Époque de Dante. A new assailant, however, 1 Paris, 1862. appeared in Herr Scheffer-Boichorst, whose damaging researches threatened a speedy end to poor Dino's precarious fame. Then a most able and patient Italian scholar-Signor del Lungo-came to the rescue, and in a monumental work, Dino Compagni e la sua Cronica,1 succeeded in refuting some grave objections, but not perhaps in establishing the Cronica in an absolutely safe and impregnable position. Is the Cronica an original composition, finished in 1312, or is it a forgery of later date, a compilation, a sort of mosaic? Dino's implacable foe, The problem. Scheffer - Boichorst, who as a matter of course espouses the latter theory, can give reasons for the faith, or non-faith, that is in him. He can, that is to say, put his finger on sundry passages which exhibit so close a resemblance to other writings -e.g., a commentary on Dante, and the Cronica of Giovanni Villani, produced later in the century-as to leave in most candid minds a moral certainty of something like plagiarism. Villani, it is important to note, is not above citing his authorities; but he does not cite Dino Compagni. This is a great difficulty, from which, however, there exists a way of escape by supposing an authentic nucleus of which Dino was the author, but in which, by the caprice of some copyist, or as the effect of accident, there have been intercalated foreign elements. The utter collapse of all linguistic, and of many historical, objections ought certainly to induce a spirit of caution. a disposition not to emphasise too strongly an argument which, on the face of it, appears decidedly formidable. I have not attempted, in these paragraphs, to record at all fully the vicissitudes of the dispute, which has engaged some of the best intellects, but the reader will be at no loss to understand the occasion of so much stir. Here is a history purporting to be written by a contemporary of Dante-not only a contemporary but a fellow-citizen; not only a fellowcitizen but a member, and an active member, of the same political faction. Doubtless, if the work is a pretence, it must be rigorously proscribed, but it is easy to defend some amount of warmth on the part of those who, sincerely believing in its authenticity, are unwilling to surrender what they regard as a priceless relic of the Trecento, on, as they opine, wholly inadequate grounds. The man. Assuming that the Cronica is genuine, at any rate as respects its main elements, Dino Compagni expresses the sentiments of the well-to-do popolani, since the disfranchisement of the nobles and great men the preponderant force in Florentine politics. He, like Dante, is of the Bianchi, and describes, from their point of view, the events of his time down to the year 1312, though he appears not to have died until the 26th of February 1324. Dino, whose existence can be proved from authentic documents, was a good, honest, peaceloving man, preaching patriotism and concord to a generation of vipers. His own sentence, "Niente vale l'umiltà contro alla gran malizia," might be chosen as the motto alike of his life and of his work. However, he is a devout believer in the providential government of the world, and although, in 1301, the wicked (the Neri) triumphed over the righteous (the Bianchi), he is assured that their victory is not for long. The coming of Henry, in 1312, is to him, as to Dante, the coming of a deliverer; and he opportunely lays down his pen in an hour when circumstances seem to promise well for his cause. There was a tendency at one time to overestimate Dino, to credit him with having repeated, in another Merits and sphere, the transcendent success of Dante. defects. And, indeed, he resembles him in one thing -he can paint. He seizes for artistic purposes the psychological moment, as, for instance, when he shows Corso Donati riding through the streets, and the people shouting after him, "Viva il barone!" But mere picturesqueness will not suffice. Other qualities go to the making of an historian, and in Dino Compagni these qualities are not present. Clearness and completeness are essential to the perfection of the art, but Dino is often confused, often desultory. Although his Cronica is devoted to the feuds of the Donati and the Cerchi, of which he recounts the origin, he, while mentioning the restoration of the Cerchi, says nothing about the return of their rivals, an omission for which it is hard to find any plausible excuse. Such faults are enough to, depose Dino from the elevation to which injudicious admirers have exalted him, but they are not enough to provoke or justify |