cala, Percival Doria, and all the other pleasures of love, concerning whom Genoese and Tuscan poets, who took much is said in the ninth Canto of far greater delight in our Provençal Paradiso. She, being enamoured of tongue, on account of its sweetness, Sordello, had cautiously contrived that than in their own maternal language. he should visit her at night by a back This poet was very studious, and ex- door near the kitchen of her palace at ceeding eager to know all things, and Verona. And as there was in the street as much as any one of his nation ex- a dirty slough in which the swine walcellent in learning as well as in under-lowed, and puddles of filthy water, so standing and in prudence. He wrote several beautiful songs, not indeed of love, for not one of that kind is found among his works, but on philosophic subjects. Raymond Belinghieri, the last Count of Provence of that name, in the last days of his life, (the poet being then but fifteen years of age,) on account of the excellence of his poetry and the rare invention shown in his productions, took him into his service, as Pietro di Castelnuovo, himself a Provençal poet, informs us. He also wrote various satires in the same language, and among others one in which he reproves all the Christian princes; and it is composed in the form of a funeral song on the death of Blancasso."

In the Hist. Litt. de la France, XIX. 452, Eméric-David, after discussing the subject at length, says :

"Who then is this Sordello, haughty and superb, like a lion in repose,—this Sordello, who, in embracing Virgil, gives rise to this sudden explosion of the patriotic sentiments of Dante? Is it a singer of love and gallantry? Impossible. This Sordello is the old Podestà of Mantua, as decided a Ghibelline as Dante himself; and Dante utters before him sentiments which he well knows the zealous Ghibelline will share. And what still more confirms our judgment is, that Sordello embraces the knees of Virgil, exclaiming, 'O glory of the Latians,' &c. In this admiration, in this love of the Latin tongue, we still see the Podestà, the writer of Latin; we do not see the Troubadour."

Benvenuto calls Sordello a “noble and prudent knight," and "a man of singular virtue in the world, though of impenitent life," and tells a story he has heard of him and Cunizza, but does not vouch for it. "Ezzelino," he says, "had a sister greatly addicted to the

that the place would seem in no way suspicious, he caused himself to be carried by her servant to the door where Cunizza stood ready to receive him. Ezzelino having heard of this, one evening, disguised as a servant, carried Sordello, and brought him back. Which done, he discovered himself to Sordello, and said, 'Enough; abstain in future from doing so foul a deed in so foul a place.' Sordello, terrified, humbly besought pardon; promising never more to return to his sister. But the accursed Cunizza again enticed him into his former error. Wherefore, fearing Ezzelino, the most formidable man of his time, he left the city. But Ezzelino, as some say, afterwards had him put to death."

He says, moreover, that Dante places Sordello alone and separate from the others, like Saladin in Inf. IV. 129, on account of his superiority, or because he wrote a book entitled “The Treasure of Treasures"; and that Sordello was a Mantuan of the village of Goïto,“beautiful of person, valiant of spirit, gentle of manner.”

Finally, Quadrio, Storia d'ogni Poesia, II. 130, easily cuts the knot which no one can untie; but unfortunately he does not give his authorities. He writes :

66

Sordello, native of Goïto, (Sordel de Goi,) a village in the Mantuan territory, was born in 1184, and was the son of a poor knight named Elcort." He then repeats the story of Count Saint Boniface, and of Sordello's reception by Count Raymond in Provence, and adds: “ Having afterwards returned to Italy he governed Mantua with the title of Regent and Captain-General; and was opposed to the tyrant Ezzelino, being a great lover of justice, as Agnelli writes. Finally he died, very old and full of honour, about 1280. He wrote not only in Provençal, but also in our own common Italian tongue; and

97. Albert, son of the Emperor Rudolph, was the second of the house of Hapsburg who bore the title of King of the Romans. He was elected in 1298, but never went to Italy to be crowned.

Unnumbered, that thy beauteous bosom stain, He came to an untimely and violent

118. This recalls Pope's Universal Prayer,—

"Father of all! in every age,

In every clime, adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!"

125. Not the great Roman general who took Syracuse, after Archimedes had defended it so long with his engines and burning-glasses, but a descendant of his, who in the civil wars took part with Pompey and was banished by Cæsar. Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. IV. 257 :— "And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels."

gular citadel. St. Peter's was a low was building her Cathedral and her basilica; the Colosseum had suffered Campanile, and Orvieto her matchless little from the attacks of Popes or princes, Duomo,-while Pisa was showing her neither the Venetian nor the Farnese piety and her wealth in her Cathedral, palace having as yet been built with her Camposanto, her Baptistery, and stones from its walls; and centuries were her Tower,-while Siena was beginning still to pass before Michael Angelo, a church greater and more magnificent Bernini, and Borromini were to stamp its in design than her shifting fortune would present character upon the face of the permit her to complete,-Rome was modern city. The siege and burning of building neither cathedral nor campanile, Rome by Robert Guiscard, in 1084, may but was selling the marbles of her ancient be taken as the dividing-line between temples and tombs to the builders of the city of the Emperors and the city of other cities, or quarrying them for her the Popes, between ancient and modern own mean uses. Rome. Rome was in a state of too deep depression, its people were too turbulent and unsettled, to have either the spirit or the opportunity for great works. There was no established and recognized authority, no regular course of justice. There was not even any strong force, rarely any overwhelming violence, which for a time at least could subdue opposition, and organize a steady, and consequently a beneficent tyranny. The city was continually distracted by petty personal quarrels, and by bitter family feuds. Its obscure annals are full of bloody civil victories and defeats, victories which brought no gain to those who won them, defeats which taught no lesson to those who lost them. The breath of liberty never inspired with life the dead clay of Rome; and though for "It was not the simple movement a time it might seem to kindle some vital of one great body against another; not heat, the glow soon grew cold, and the force of a government in opposition speedily disappeared. The records of to the people; not the struggle of Florence, Siena, Bologna, and Perugia privilege and democracy, of poverty are as full of fighting and bloodshed as and riches, or starvation and repletion; those of Rome; but their fights were but one universal burst of unmitigated not mere brawls, nor were their triumphs anarchy. In the streets, lanes, and always barren. Even the twelfth and squares, in the courts of palaces and thirteenth centuries, which were like the humbler dwellings, were heard the coming of the spring after a long winter, clang of arms, the screams of victims, making the earth to blossom, and glad- and the gush of blood: the bow of dening the hearts of men,- the centuries the bridegroom launched its arrows which elsewhere in Italy, and over the into the very chambers of his young rest of Europe, gave birth to the noblest bride's parents and relations, and the medieval Art, when every great city was bleeding son, the murdered brother, or adorning itself with the beautiful works the dying husband were the evening of the new architecture, sculpture, and visitors of Florentine maids and mapainting, even these centuries left trons, and aged citizens. Every art scarcely any token of their passage over was practised to seduce and deceive, Rome. The sun, breaking through the and none felt clouds that had long hidden it, shone everywhere but here. While Florence

127. Of the state of Florence, Napier writes, Flor. Hist., I. 122:

secure even of their nearest and dearest relatives. In the morning a son left his paternal roof

with undiminished love, and returned their statutes and ordinances, a weedat evening a corpse, or the most bitter ing out, as it were, of the obsolete and enemy! Terror and death were tri- contradictory, and a substitution of umphant; there was no relaxation, no those which were better adapted to peace by day or night: the crash of existing circumstances and the forward the stone, the twang of the bow, the movement of man. There are certain whizzing shaft, the jar of the trembling fundamental laws necessarily permanent mangonel from tower and turret, were and admitted by all communities, as the dismal music of Florence, not only there are certain moral and theological for hours and days, but months and truths acknowledged by all religions; years. Doors, windows, the jutting but these broad frames or outlines are galleries and roofs, were all defended, commonly filled up with a thick netand yet all unsafe: no spot was sacred, work of subordinate regulations, that no tenement secure in the dead of cover them like cobwebs, and often night, the most secret chambers, the very impede the march of improvement. hangings, even the nuptial bed itself, The Florentines were early aware of were often known to conceal an enemy. this, and therefore revised their laws and institutions more or less frequently and sometimes factiously, according to the turbulent or tranquil condition of the times; but in 1394, after forty years' omission, an officer was nominated for that purpose, but whether permanently or not is doubtful."

CANTO VII.

6. See Canto III. Note 7.

28. Limbo, Inf. IV. 25, the "foremost circle that surrounds the abyss." "There, in so far as I had power to hear,

"Florence in those days was studded with lofty towers; most of the noble families possessed one or more, at least two hundred feet in height, and many of them far above that altitude. These were their pride, their family citadels; and jealously guarded; glittering with arms and men, and instruments of war. Every connecting balcony was alive with soldiers; the battle raged above and below, within and without; stones rained in showers, arrows flew thick and fast on every side; the seraglj, or barricades, were attacked and defended by chosen bands armed with lances and boar-spears; foes were in ambush at every corner, watching the bold or heedless enemy; confusion was everywhere triumphant, a demon seemed to possess the community, and the public mind, reeling with hatred, was steady only in the pursuit of blood. Yet so accustomed did they at last become to this fiendish life, that one day they fought, the next caroused together in 36. The four Cardinal Virtues, Prudrunken gambols, foe with foe, boast-dence, Justice, Fortitude, and Tempeing of their mutual prowess; nor was it until after nearly five years of re- 44. John xii. 35: "Then Jesus said ciprocal destruction, that, from mere unto them, Yet a little while is the lassitude, they finally ceased thus to light with you. Walk while ye have mangle each other, and, as it were for the light, lest darkness come upon you: relaxation, turned their fury on the for he that walketh in darkness knoweth neighbouring states." not whither he goeth."

147. Upon this subject Napier, Flor. Hist., II. 626, remarks:

“A characteristic, and, if discreetly handled, a wise regulation of the Florentines, notwithstanding Dante's sarcasms, was the periodical revision of

Were lamentations none, but only sighs, Which tremulous made the everlasting air. And this was caused by sorrow without tor

ment

Which the crowds had, that many were and great,

Of infants and of women and of men."

34. The three Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.

rance.

70. In the Middle Ages the longing for rest and escape from danger, which found its expression in cloisters, is expressed in poetry by descriptions of flowery, secluded meadows, suggesting the classic meadows of Asphodel. Dante