• Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • 1 1 Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB] Im m H Mostra Blocco Note cosmopolitan perspective, a developing Italian vernacular, and a powerful sense of local self-con's fidence. This was the age of Dante. DANTE AND THE LATE-MEDIEVAL ITALIAN WORLD The role of Dante in the history of Italian cultural development was more a question of debate in the Renaissance than it is now. Dante's posthumous reputation underwent a change between the early Renaissance in the mid-fourteenth century, the age of Petrarch, and the mature Florentine Renaissance of the fifteenth century, the age of Bruni. Petrarch, as we shall see in the next chapter, was one of the most influential of the early Renaissance humanists in Italy. He admired Dante, although he had reservations, seeing him reduced 12% Posizione 970 di 8475 E*I, © r so- /.._ Q iL 1 « Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida ® 0 & ^ $ ^ 4 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 © ~ • o • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro CJ Vai a v ( Aa J Im m H Mostra Blocco Note in stature because he wrote the Divine Comedy in Italian, the vernacular, rather than in elegant, 'S classical Latin—a tongue that Petrarch believed Dante had mastered only imperfectly because his Latin writings reflect the style of the Middle Ages, a style Petrarch abominated. Also, Dante was different from Petrarch. He was a politician; he married and had legitimate children, and never lost his interest in the things of the world. He was not a pure scholar, on the model of Petrarch, who never married or held significant political office. Petrarch's exact contemporary, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), saw Dante as one of the first lights of a new age, although more a harbinger than a fulfillment of the rebirth in style and art. Boccaccio was born to a Florentine family in exile and lived the life of a wandering scholar and teacher, producing some of the most popular books of the early Renaissance such as his De- 12% Posizione 976 di 8475 E*I, © r so- /.._ Q iL 1 • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ~ • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im es H Mostra Blocco Note cameron. Later, he lectured and wrote on Dante and the Divine Comedy in Florence; nevertheless, fQ as his Life of Dante illustrates at some length, he felt that the older poet was flawed and tragic because he permitted political and conjugal concerns to complicate what might have been a life of scholarship and poetry. The complete victory of the memory of Dante over his earlier critics came only in the fifteenth century, a period when the vernacular was recognized as a legitimate medium for great literature, when an active, politically engaged, married life was admired more than the aloof profession of the scholar, and when Dante's great service to his native Florence was perfectly in tune with the mature Florentine self-confidence and patriotism of that century. Indeed, Dante became a secular saint to Renaissance Florence, sharing the altar of civic humanism with Cicero, and the Florentine humanist 12% Posizione 982 di 8475 E*I, © r so- /.._ Q iL 1 • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ~ • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im es H Mostra Blocco Note chancellor Leonardo Bruni (d. 1444) wrote a new life of Dante in which he praised the very things fQ criticized by Boccaccio. However, interesting as this history is for understanding the Renaissance, there is more to it. Why is Dante being discussed in a chapter entitled "Before the Renaissance"? The answer becomes clear with a brief look at Dante's major literary works and his biography, at least as much as is known of it. (Boccaccio's Life of Dante is the primary source.) Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in May 1265, the son of Alighiero Alighieri and Bella degli Abati. Dante's father was an aristocratic supporter of the Guelfs, an allegiance that had led to his banishment from Florence before Dante's birth. Dante's mother died when her son was only ten years old, and his father subsequently remarried. This event apparently led to Dante's • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im es H Mostra Blocco Note being educated and boarded outside of the family home in a monastery of Franciscan friars whose fQ mysticism and spirituality were to have a power- ful effect on the future poet. Because of his high birth and political connections, the young Dante took part in many of the Florentine battles of the 1280s. At this time he had also met his great love, Beatrice Portinari. Dante says he first saw Beatrice when he was about ten years of age and she nine. And, almost ten years later, this same Beatrice saluted her admirer while passing on a public street, and Dante fell hopelessly into a perfect but unconsummated love. The real Beatrice (b. 1266) was the daughter of a very rich and influential Florentine patrician, Folco Portinari (d. 1289), the founder of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova; and by 12 8 3, that is, before the second and momentous encounter with Dante, she had been married to another • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im es H Mostra Blocco Note equally rich and influential citizen, Simone de'Bardi, a member of the great banking family. fQ Beatrice died seven years later, in 1290, and Dante never completely recovered. The shock of Beatrice's death made Dante spiritualize her by believing that she was too perfect for this world, that she was really an angel who cared not about the wretchedness, squalor, pain, and misery of earthy life, and returned therefore to heaven where she belonged. Here, then, was the genesis of the Beatrice of Dante's Paradiso, his vision of heaven. To recover from the depression caused by Beatrice's death, Dante sought solace in philosophy—Aristotelian philosophy—studying with the great Brunetto Latini (1220-94), whom Dante was reluctantly obliged in his Comedia to place in hell among the sodomites. Also, Dante began the cultivation of classical poets, especially Ovid and Virgil, the great favorites of the Middle Ages. m t • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ~ • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im es H Mostra Blocco Note At this point, the scholar started to draw connections between his two literary inspirations— fQ Latin letters and philosophy—and came to believe in the unity of poetry and philosophy since both represented moral and absolute truths. Again, we can see the beginnings of the Divine Comedy. Despite his sorrow over Beatrice's death, Dante married (probably some time before the end of the century) one Gemma Donati, by whom he had at least three children. During this first stage of Dante's life, the political world of Florence was confused and riddled with faction. The old distinctions of Guelf and Ghibelline remained, but during the later thirteenth century this division was complicated by the rise of a rich entrepreneurial class that was generally opposed to the feuding aristocratic thugs of both parties who made the city unstable and unsafe for commerce. Because of his birth and his interests, Dante found • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im es H Mostra Blocco Note himself caught in the middle of these factional disputes. As a member of a greater guild (he en-ffj tered the guild of physicians and apothecaries, although he was neither), he was eligible for high office and subsequently held several senior positions, both externally as an ambassador and internally as a prior, the highest office in the republic. Dante's performance appears to have been dedicated to maintaining harmony within Florence, as well as protecting the city's independence from Pope Boniface VIII. The result was that he became an enemy of the violent papal party, which, once it came to power with the help of the French army in 13 01, began to try, condemn, and exile its opponents. Dante was one of the first to suffer. His sentence in two unfair trials was at first a heavy fine, loss of all political rights forever, and two years' exile. But his enemies, still unsatisfied, ordered a second trial that sentenced • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida (S> 0 W ^ t ^ 100% QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ~ • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro C Vai a v Aa | jjjjjj R Mostra Blocco Note Dante to death. Away at the time on a diplomatic mission, Dante escaped this fate. However, he never again saw Florence. Figure 2.2 Florence, Cathedral. Domenico di Michelino (1417-91): The Divine Comedy of Dante Illuminates Florence. This image, which portrays the Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante's Divine Comedy, was painted on the west wall of the m t ■ Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida 0 W V ^)) 100% |g§i Q ABC - esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ■=: • o • Biblioteca < Indietro Vai a Aa m I Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Mostra Blocco Note IB cathedral in Florence long after the poet's death. The walled city illustrated to the right of Dante's book is the Florence of the fifteenth century—not the Florence of Dante's time. Dante's gesture suggests that hell is outside the walls of Florence, an obvious comment on his exile. Exiled in great poverty and depressed, Dante allowed his solitary melancholia to dwell on life, death, and human vanity. His suffering increased because his sons, too, were banished, although his wife remained in Florence. For consolation, his mind returned to his angelic Beatrice and the virtue of lofty thoughts—and the Divine Comedy was begun. Dante was very proud and hated the life of a wanderer, embarrassed by his need of continuous charity and hospitality. He never stayed in any one place very long, despite the warmth of his welcome. He lived briefly at the court of Verona and in France, where he may have studied at the University of Paris. In 1311 Dante went to Milan to pay homage to the emperor • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida (S> 0 W ^ t ^ 100% QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ~ • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro C Vai a v Aa | jjjjjj R Mostra Blocco Note Henry VII, who had entered Italy to impose peace. Dante had great hopes for Henry, as his De monar-fQ chia (On Universal Dominion) was to show, but Henry's futile mission ended with the monarch's untimely death in 1313, leaving Dante and his Ghibelline hopes for revenge shattered. Dante thereafter continued his travels, moving from one Ghibelline city to another: Verona, Lucca, Verona again, and, finally, Ravenna in 1315. Dante rejected an offer of pardon from Florence, refusing to cooperate with his former enemies. As a consequence, he and his sons were once again sentenced to death and proclaimed outlaws. Dante spent the remainder of his life in Ravenna, living as an honored guest in the house of Guido Novello until his death in the fall of 13 21 at the age of fifty-six. Dante's Works • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im EE H Mostra Blocco Note Not long after the death of Beatrice, Dante collected several melancholy poems that he had Q written to her. Each poem is introduced by a prose preface describing its context. Then, following scholastic models, Dante appended an exegesis of his work, a didactic commentary on his own poetry. This is the Vita Nuova (New Life). The tone of the book is so reverential that it might have been written by a saint in praise of God, rather by a man in praise of a woman. There is no physical description of Beatrice, only of her purity. The only "other lady" who could attract the poet after Beatrice's death was, as he tells his readers in the Convivio (The Banquet), Dame Philosophy. Indeed, the Vita Nuova is about an allegory of divine grace whose links with real life are through abstract philosophy and reverence. The Convivio is in fact a philosophical document. The title refers to the feast of knowledge that Dante is offering to his • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im EE H Mostra Blocco Note readers. It is a series of four canzoni, or poems, together with explanations, arranged according to fQ the scholastic method. Indeed, the poetic treatises are simply mirrors of Aristotelian learning and hardly Dante's own expression at all. The work's greatest merit rests in its attempt to use the vernacular for ideas previously limited to Latin, and it is so didactic that it almost seems to be a manual on the art of poetry. De vulgari eloquentia, or On the Eloquence of the Vernacular Tongue, is a Latin prose work proposing the development of a new literary language of convention to replace the various Italian dialects, Provencal, and even learned Latin. This is Dante's vulgare illustre, or illustrious vernacular, which could express the highest thoughts in a dolce stil nuovo, a sweet new style. None of the many variants of Italian could do this in his time, Dante writes, not even his own Tuscan, a dialect • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im EE H Mostra Blocco Note he specifically vilifies. Yet the great implication of this work is its irony: because of Dante's achieve-fn ment in the Divine Comedy, his native Tuscan did indeed become the vulgare illustre and his style the dolce stil nuovo. De monorchia, On Universal Dominion, is important as a work of political thought. In essence, it is simply a learned statement of the Ghibelline creed, a position to which Dante was driven by his exile: the world needs peace and harmony, and these qualities are best delivered by a universal monarchy, that is, the Holy Roman Empire. The papacy's claims in this regard are usurpations since priests rule in the spiritual rather than the temporal sphere. But of course Dante's most famous work is the Divine Comedy or Commedia. In its simplest form, this great poem studies allegorically the movement of the soul's conversion to God through • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 C\ © ;= • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im EE H Mostra Blocco Note a wanderer's journey among the kingdoms of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The first kingdom fQ represents sin, the second repentance, and the third grace, or knowledge of God. The Latin poet Virgil functions as Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory, Beatrice through Paradise. In these visions, the characters of Dante's age and from his historical knowledge are portrayed as individuals, being either rewarded or punished as the poet sees fit. But to return to the question with which this section began: why place Dante in the Middle Ages rather than, as many other scholars have done, in the early Renaissance? The answer is clear from his attitudes and writings, especially the Comme-dia. Certainly, he illustrates many later characteristics in his work, such as a deep love and respect for the classical world, although this was true of the Middle Ages as well. He was an active citizen • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida (S> 0 W ^ t ^ 100% QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ~ • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro C Vai a v Aa | jjjjjj R Mostra Blocco Note who took part in the civic life of Florence; he married and had children and he lived a secular life. Nevertheless, in essence, the ideas Dante expresses are almost completely medieval, as was his education. The saints Dante meets in heaven are largely scholastics, for example, Sts Thomas and Bernard, the latter of whom, in fact, leads him toward God. His method in all of his work is Aristotelian—in other words, scholastic. He has little concern for classical Latin style and he saves his greatest respect for the Roman Empire rather than the Roman Republic; indeed, Brutus and Cassius, the betrayers of Caesar, share the lowest pit of Hell, the ninth circle, with Judas, the betrayer of Christ. The Middle Ages celebrated the Empire because it was at that time that the incarnation took place, established the conditions for the evangelization of the Roman world, and • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © != • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im ee H Mostra Blocco Note institutionalized Christianity; the adulation of the Republic was a later phenomenon. Also, Dante's view of the past is medieval. He sees no gulf between the ancient world and his own; rather, he accepts the principle of a continuum, elaborating God's plan for humanity. As a consequence, his attitude toward history looks backward rather than forward. He does not differentiate between historical fact and legend, both of which help equally in establishing allegorical visions and examples for his readers. In short, Dante does not engage that critical faculty so important to the Renaissance. He is, to be sure, interested in individual men and women and their experiences; however, he tends, like his medieval antecedents, to abstract them, allegorize them, and universalize them. Unlike Petrarch, as we shall see, who continually investigates his inner workings, his psychology, and his motivations, • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:45 Q, © ;= • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im ee H Mostra Blocco Note Dante accepts the teachings of an omniscient Church, illuminated by scholastic thought. In the fQ Divine Comedy, for example, what are the areas of punishment and reward? The traditional rules and morality represented by the seven deadly sins that animate Hell. Catholic penance is the theme Dante develops on the plateaus of Purgatory; and both the worship of God and the Virgin—again explicated by scholastic philosophy—and the absorption of the individual soul in God dominate the Paradiso. Dante is, then, a medieval man, but one so remarkable and so great that he transcends any period. One reason why several of Dante's characteristics seem to have been part of the later Renaissance is that they were resurrected as ex post facto arguments in favor of those elements of Florentine life that happened fortuitously to conform to the new requirements of the fif- • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> 0ABC-esteso Sab 10:46 © ;=: • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im EE H Mostra Blocco Note Dante accepts the teachings of an omniscient Church, illuminated by scholastic thought. In the fQ Divine Comedy, for example, what are the areas of punishment and reward? The traditional rules and morality represented by the seven deadly sins that animate Hell. Catholic penance is the theme Dante develops on the plateaus of Purgatory; and both the worship of God and the Virgin—again explicated by scholastic philosophy—and the absorption of the individual soul in God dominate the Paradiso. Dante is, then, a medieval man, but one so remarkable and so great that he transcends any period. One reason why several of Dante's characteristics seem to have been part of the later Renaissance is that they were resurrected as ex post facto arguments in favor of those elements of Florentine life that happened fortuitously to conform to the new requirements of the fif- • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:46 © ;=: • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im ee H Mostra Blocco Note teenth-century republic. The early Renaissance deplored Dante's use of the vernacular. (Petrarch Q said that he had never even seen the Commedia before Boccaccio brought him a copy in Venice in his old age.) It was only with the rediscovery of the beauties of the Tuscan tongue that Dante's place in the hagiography of the later age became secure. Moreover, Boccaccio disliked Dante's having married and having engaged in politics. He thought it unseemly, as would have Petrarch if he had considered Dante much at all before his old age. However, half a century later, when civic, conjugal, and political life represented the norms and communal principles of society in Florence, Dante was again rehabilitated and polished for the altar of Florentine civic virtue. In short, Dante was great and contained multitudes, as does every true genius. The elements of his character • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:46 © ;=: • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB Im es H Mostra Blocco Note that one chooses to stress will determine his place in the intellectual history of western Europe. ^ But in closing, let me repeat my claim that Dante, despite his civic rehabilitation in the fifteenth century as a prefiguration of Florentine civic humanism, was in all significant ways a very medieval figure. Let us use Burckhardt's criteria: Was Dante secular? In life he was, but in his thought he was a traditional medieval Roman Catholic in religion and a scholastic in education and method. Was Dante an unbridled egoist? He lived alone but sought no fame; indeed, it almost embarrassed him. He appeared not to have had Petrarch's interest in self-analysis and provided very little for the figures in his vision. And obviously, he did not conform to Burckhardt's accusation of amorality or uncontrolled individualism. Dante can hardly be compared to Cesare Borgia. • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I <3> 4>) 100% ü> QABC-esteso Sab 10:46 © ;=: • O • II Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa IB lUJ ee H Mostra Blocco Note Was Dante "modern" in the Burckhardtian sense? He did write in Italian, and that was a fQ new trend; but he wrote religious allegory about a world that comes down to a universal battleground between good and evil. His vision was circumscribed by the immediate concerns of his age: Guelf and Ghibelline, pope and emperor, friend and enemy, God and the devil. Finally, how did Dante relate to the classical past? His appreciation of antiquity was that of any good, sensitive medieval scholar. Virgil, the great Roman epic poet, is indeed his guide through Hell and Purgatory; but it is not so much the Virgil of The Aeneid, the poet of Rome, as much as the medieval Virgil, the poet of the Fourth Eclogue that was interpreted to foretell the coming of Christ. FURTHER READING • Kindle File Modifica Visualizza Vai Strumenti Guida m © w ^ i I ^ 4>) 100% H> QABC-esteso Sab 10:46 C\ © ■= • O • 1 1 Kindle di Daniela per Mac - A Short History of the Italian Renaissance Biblioteca < Indietro O Vai a v Aa |H Im m H Mostra Blocco Note Becker, Marvin B. Medieval Italy: Constraints and Creativity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. Lamer, John. Italy in the Age of Dante and Petrarch: 1216-1380. A Longman History of Italy. Vol. 2. New York: Longman Group, 1980. Lopez, Robert S., and Irving W. Raymond, trans, and intr. Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Riley-Smith, J. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures of Political Rule. Cambridge Medieval Textbooks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 14% Posizione 1101 di 8475 e*i, © 7«$- /.._ Q 1l 1