4 Dante’s Political Life
Election of Boniface VIII.—Upon the abdication of Celestine V., Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani was made Pope on Christmas Eve 1294, under the title of Boniface VIII. (Inf. xix. 52-57), an event ominous for Florence and for Dante. Although canonised by the Church, there is little doubt that St. Celestine is the first soul met by Dante in the vestibule of Hell: Colui che fece per viltà il gran rifiuto (Inf. iii. 58-60), “He who made from cowardice the great renunciation.”
Giano della Bella.—Florence had just confirmed the democratic character of her constitution by the reforms of Giano della Bella, a noble who had identified himself with the popular cause (Par. xvi. 132). By the Ordinances of Justice in 1293 stringent provisions were enacted against the nobles, who since Campaldino had grown increasingly aggressive towards the people and factious against each other. They were henceforth more rigorously excluded from the Priorate and Council of the Hundred, as also from the councils of the Captain and Capitudini; severe penalties were exacted for offences against popolani; and, in order that these ordinances should be carried out, a new magistrate, the Gonfaloniere di Guistizia or Standard-bearer of Justice, was added to the Signoria to hold office like the Priors for two months in rotation from the different districts of the city. Thus was completed the secondo popolo, the second democratic constitution of Florence. The third of these standard-bearers was Dino Compagni, the chronicler. Giano della Bella was meditating the continuation of his work by depriving the captains of the Guelf Society of their power and resources, when a riot, in which Corso Donati played a prominent part, caused his overthrow in March 1295. By his fall the government remained in the hands of the rich burghers, being practically an oligarchy of merchants and bankers.
First Steps in Political Life.—In this same year 1295, the first year of the pontificate of Boniface VIII., Dante entered political life. Although of noble descent, the Alighieri do not seem to have ranked as magnates. By a modification in the Ordinances of Justice in July 1295, citizens, without actually exercising an “art,” were admitted to office provided they had matriculated and were not knights, if not more than two persons in their family had held knighthood within the last twenty years. Dante now (or perhaps a little later) enrolled his name in the matricola of the Art of Physicians and Apothecaries, which included painters and booksellers. For the six months from November 1st, 1295, to April 30th, 1296, he was a member of the Special Council of the Captain. On December 14th, as one of the savi or specially summoned counsellors, he gave his opinion (consuluit) in the Council of the Capitudini of the Arts on the procedure to be adopted for the election of the new Signoria. On January 23rd, 1296, the Pope inaugurated his aggressive policy towards the Republic by addressing a bull to the Podestà, Captain, Ancients, Priors and Rectors of the Arts, to the Council and the Commune of Florence (purposely ignoring the new office of Gonfaloniere). After denouncing in unmeasured terms the wickedness of that “rock of scandal,” Giano della Bella, and extolling the prudence of the Florentines in expelling him, the Pope, hearing that certain persons are striving to obtain his recall, utterly forbids anything of the kind without special licence from the Holy See, under penalty of excommunication and interdict. The Pope further protests his great and special affection for Florence, amongst the cities devoted to God and the Apostolic See. “I love France so well,” says Shakespeare’s King Henry, “that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine.”
Although Boccaccio, and others in his steps, have somewhat exaggerated Dante’s influence in the politics of the Republic, there can be no doubt that he soon came to take a decided attitude in direct opposition to all lawlessness, and in resistance to any external interference in Florentine matters, whether from Rome, Naples, or France. The eldest son of Charles II., Carlo Martello, whom Dante had “loved much and with good cause” (Par. viii. 55) during his visit to Florence in the spring of 1294, had died in the following year; and his father was harassing the Florentines for money to carry on the Sicilian war. Dante, on leaving the Council of the Captain, had been elected to the Council of the Hundred, in which, on June 5th, 1296, he spoke in support of various proposals, including one on the embellishment of the cathedral and baptistery by the removal of the old hospital, and another undertaking not to receive men under ban of the Commune of Pistoia in the city and contado of Florence. In the previous May, in consequence of internal factions, Pistoia had given Florence control of the city, with power to send a podestà and a captain every six months. After this we do not hear of Dante again until May 7th, 1300, when he acted as ambassador to San Gemignano to announce that a parliament was to be held for the purpose of electing a captain for the Guelf League of Tuscany, and to invite the Commune to send representatives. But already the storm cloud which loomed on the horizon had burst upon the city on May Day 1300.
Blacks and Whites.—The new division of parties in Florence became associated with the feud between two noble families, the Donati and the Cerchi, headed respectively by two of the heroes of Campaldino, Corso Donati and Vieri de’ Cerchi. The names Neri and Bianchi, Black Guelfs and White Guelfs, by which the two factions became known, seem to have been derived from a similar division in Pistoia, the ringleaders of which, being banished to Florence, embittered the quarrels already in progress in the ruling city. But the roots of the trouble went deeper and were political, connected with the discontent of both magnates and popolo minuto under the hegemony of the Greater Arts. The Bianchi were opposed to a costly policy of expansion; the Neri, who had wider international and mercantile connections, looked beyond the affairs of the Commune, and favoured intimate relations with the Angevin sovereigns of Naples and the Pope. To the Bianchi adhered those nobles who had matriculated in the Arts, the more moderate spirits among the burghers, the remains of the party of Giano della Bella who supported the Ordinances of Justice in a modified form. While the Bianchi drew closer to the constitutional government, the strength of the Neri lay in the councils of the Guelf Society and the influence of the aristocratic bankers. Guido Cavalcanti (who, even after the modification of the Ordinances, would have been excluded from office) was allied with the Cerchi, but probably less influenced by political considerations than by his personal hostility towards Messer Corso, who was in high favour with the Pope. Florence was now indeed “disposed for woeful ruin” (Purg. xxiv. 81), but there had been a “long contention” (Inf. vi. 64) before the parties came to bloodshed.
The Jubilee.—On February 22nd, 1300, Pope Boniface issued the bull proclaiming the first papal jubilee. It began with the previous Christmas Day and lasted through the year 1300. Amongst the throngs of pilgrims from all parts of the world to Rome were Giovanni Villani and, probably, Dante (Inf. xviii. 29). This visit to Rome inspired Villani to undertake his great chronicle; and it is the epoch to which Dante assigns the vision which is the subject of the Divina Commedia (Purg. ii. 98). The Pope, however, had his eyes on Florence, and had apparently resolved to make Tuscany a part of the Papal States. Possibly he had already opened negotiations with the Neri through his agents and bankers, the Spini. A plot against the state on the part of three Florentines in the service of the Pope was discovered to the Signoria, and sentence passed against the offenders on April 18th.3 Boniface wrote to the Bishop of Florence, on April 24th, 1300, demanding from the Commune that the sentences should be annulled and the accusers sent to him. The Priors having refused compliance and denied his jurisdiction in the matter, the Pope issued a second bull, declaring that he had no intention of derogating from the jurisdiction or liberty of Florence, which he intended to increase; but asserting the absolute supremacy of the Roman Pontiff both in spiritual and temporal things over all peoples and kingdoms, and demanding again, with threats of vengeance spiritual and temporal, that the sentences against his adherents should be annulled, that the three accusers with six of the most violent against his authority should appear before him, and that the officers of the Republic should send representatives to answer for their conduct. This was on May 15th, but, two days earlier, the Pope had written to the Duke of Saxony, and sent the Bishop of Ancona to Germany, to demand from Albert of Austria the renunciation absolutely to the Holy See of all rights claimed by the Emperors in Tuscany.
Dante’s Priorate.—But in the meantime bloodshed had taken place in Florence. On May 1st the two factions came to blows in the Piazza di Santa Trinita; and on May 4th full powers had been given to the Priors to defend the liberty of the Commune and People of Florence against dangers from within and without (which had evidently irritated the Pope). The whole city was now divided; magnates and burghers alike became bitter partisans of one or other faction. The Pope, who had previously made a vain attempt to reconcile Vieri de’ Cerchi with the Donati, sent the Franciscan Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta as legate and peacemaker to Florence, in the interests of the captains of the Guelf Society and the Neri, who accused the Signoria of Ghibelline tendencies. The Cardinal arrived in June. From June 15th to August 14th Dante was one of the six Priors by election. “All my misfortunes,” he says in the letter quoted by Leonardo Bruni, “had their cause and origin in my ill-omened election to the Priorate; of which Priorate, though by prudence I was not worthy, still by faith and age I was not unworthy.” We know too little of the facts to be able to comment upon this cryptic utterance. On the first day of office (June 15th), the sentence passed in the previous April against the three Florentines in the papal service was formally consigned to Dante and his colleagues—Lapo Gianni (probably the same person as his poet friend of that name) acting as notary. There were disturbances in the city. On St. John’s Eve an assault was made upon the Consuls of the Arts by certain magnates of the Neri, and their opponents threatened to take up arms. The Priors, perhaps on Dante’s motion, exiled (or, more accurately, put under bounds outside the territory of the Republic) some prominent members of both factions, including Corso Donati and Guido Cavalcanti. The Neri attempted to resist, expecting aid from the Cardinal and from Lucca; the Bianchi obeyed. Negotiations continued between the Signoria and the Cardinal, Dante and his colleagues resisting the papal demands without coming to a formal rupture.
The Bianchi in Power.—The succeeding Signoria was less prudent. The banished Bianchi were allowed to return just after Dante had left office (as he himself states in a lost letter seen by Leonardo Bruni), on the plea of the illness of Guido Cavalcanti, who had contracted malaria at Sarzana, and died at Florence in the last days of August. At the end of September a complete rupture ensued with Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta, who broke off negotiations and retired to Bologna, leaving the city under an interdict. Corso Donati had broken bounds and gone to the Pope, who, towards the close of 1300, nominated Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair, captain-general of the papal states, and summoned him to Italy to aid Charles of Naples against Frederick of Aragon in Sicily and reduce the “rebels” of Tuscany to submission.
We meet the name of Dante on several occasions among the consulte of the Florentine Republic during 1301. It is probable that he was one of the savi called to council on March 15th, and that he opposed the granting of a subsidy in money which the King of Naples had demanded for the Sicilian war and which was made by the Council of the Hundred.4 On April 14th he was among the savi in the Council of the Capitudini for the election of the new Signoria, of which Palmieri Altoviti was the leading spirit. On April 28th Dante was appointed officialis et superestans, in connection with the works in the street of San Procolo, possibly with the object of more readily bringing up troops from the country. During the priorate of Palmieri Altoviti (April 15th to June 14th), a conspiracy was discovered, hatched at a meeting of the Neri in the church of S. Trinita, to overthrow the government and invite the Pope to send Charles of Valois to Florence. In consequence a number of Neri were banished and their possessions confiscated, a fresh sentence being passed against Corso Donati. The Bianchi were all potent in Florence; and, in May 1301, they procured the expulsion of the Neri from Pistoia (ruthlessly carried out by the Florentine captain, Andrea Gherardini), which was the beginning of the end (Inf. xxiv. 143): “Pistoia first is thinned of Neri; then Florence renovates folk and rule.”
The Coming of Charles of Valois.—The government still shrank from directly opposing the Pope, who, by letter from Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta, demanded the continuation of the service of a hundred horsemen. On June 19th, 1301, in a united meeting of the Councils of the Hundred, of the Captain, and of the Capitudini, and again in the Council of the Hundred apart, Dante spoke against compliance, urging “quod de servitio faciendo domini Papae nihil fiat”—with the result that the matter was postponed. In the united Councils of the Hundred, the Captain, the Podestà, and the Capitudini, on September 13th, he pleaded for the preservation of the Ordinances of Justice (a sign that the State was regarded as in peril). On this occasion all the twenty-one arts were represented, which we may connect with Leonardo Bruni’s statement that Dante had advised the Priors to strengthen themselves with the support of the “moltitudine del popolo.” On September 20th, in the Council of the Captain, he supported a request of the ambassadors of the Commune of Bologna (then allied with the Bianchi) for free passage for their importation of grain. On September 28th, again in the Council of the Captain, he defended a certain Neri di Gherardino Diedati (whose father was destined to share the poet’s fate) from an injust charge. This is the last recorded time that Dantes Alagherii consuluit in Florence. Already Charles of Valois was on his way, preparing to “joust with the lance of Judas” (Purg. xx. 70-78). On November 1st, after giving solemn pledges to the Signoria (Dino Compagni being one of the Priors), Charles with 1200 horsemen entered Florence without opposition.
Leonardo Bruni asserts that Dante was absent at Rome on an embassy to the Pope when the latter’s “peacemaker” entered Florence. It would appear that the Florentine government had requested the allied Commune of Bologna to send an embassy to Boniface, simultaneously with an embassy from Siena with which were associated three ambassadors from Florence: Maso di Ruggierino Minerbetti, Corazza da Signa, and Dante Alighieri. Their purpose was to make their own terms with the Pontiff in order to avert the intervention of Charles. The mission set out at the beginning of October; but one of the Bolognese ambassadors, Ubaldino Malavolti, having business of his own with the Florentine government, delayed the others so long that they did not arrive in time.5 Boccaccio asserts that, when the Bianchi proposed to send Dante on such an embassy, he answered somewhat arrogantly: “If I go, who stays? and if I stay, who goes?” According to Dino Compagni, Boniface sent two of the Florentines—Maso Minerbetti and Corazza da Signa—back to Florence to demand submission to his will, but detained Dante at his court. The fact of Dante taking part in such an embassy is confirmed by the author of the Ottimo Commento, as also by an anonymous commentator on the canzone of the Tre donne, and, though seriously questioned by many Dante scholars, it is now generally accepted as historical. The other two ambassadors returned almost simultaneously with the arrival of the French prince. Yielding to necessity and trusting to his solemn oath, the Signoria, in a parliament held in S. Maria Novella, gave Charles authority to pacify the city; which he set about doing by restoring the Neri to power. Corso Donati with his allies entered Florence in arms, to plunder and massacre at their pleasure, the last Signoria of the Bianchi being compelled to resign on November 7th (cf. Purg. vi. 143, 144). A second effort by the Cardinal Matteo from the Pope to reconcile the two factions was resisted by Charles and the Neri; and the work of proscription began. The new Podestà, Cante de’ Gabrielli da Gubbio, passed sentence after sentence against the ruined Bianchi. Finally, at the beginning of April, their chiefs were betrayed into a real or pretended conspiracy against Charles, and driven out with their followers and adherents, both nobles and burghers, six hundred in number; their houses were destroyed, and their goods confiscated, themselves sentenced as rebels. On April 4th, 1302, Charles left Florence, covered with disgrace and full of plunder, leaving the government entirely in the hands of the Neri. “Having cast forth the greatest part of the flowers from thy bosom, O Florence,” writes Dante in the De Vulgari Eloquentia, “the second Totila went fruitlessly to Sicily” (V. E. ii. 6).
Sentences against Dante.—The first sentence against Dante is dated January 27th, 1302, and includes four other names. Gherardino Diedati, formerly Prior, is accused of taking bribes for the release of a prisoner, and has not appeared when summoned. Palmieri Altoviti (who had taken the lead in putting down the conspiracy hatched in Santa Trinita), Dante Alighieri, Lippo Becchi (one of the denouncers of Boniface’s agents in 1300), and Orlanduccio Orlandi are accused of “barratry,” fraud and corrupt practices, unlawful gains and extortions and the like, in office and out of office; of having corruptly and fraudulently used the money and resources of the Commune against the Supreme Pontiff, and to resist the coming of Messer Carlo, or against the pacific state of Florence and the Guelf Party; of having caused the expulsion of the Neri from Pistoia, and severed that city from Florence and the Church. Since they have contumaciously absented themselves, when summoned to appear before the Podestà’s court, they are held to have confessed their guilt, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine and restore what they have extorted. If not paid in three days, all their goods shall be confiscated; even if they pay, they are exiled for two years and perpetually excluded as falsifiers and barrators, tamquam falsarii et barattarii, from holding any office or benefice under the Commune of Florence. On March 10th, a further sentence condemns these five with ten others to be burned to death, if any of them at any time shall come into the power of the Commune. In this latter sentence there is no mention of any political offence, but only of malversation and contumacy. None of Dante’s six colleagues in the Signoria are included in either sentence; but in the second appear the names of Lapo Salterelli, who had headed the opposition to Boniface in the spring of 1300, but whom the poet judges sternly (cf. Par. xv. 128), and Andrea Gherardini, who had been Florentine captain at Pistoia.
There can be little doubt that, in spite of the wording of these two sentences, Dante’s real offence was his opposition to the policy of Pope Boniface. In the De Volgari Eloquentia (i. 6) he declares that he is suffering exile unjustly because of his love for Florence. All his early biographers bear testimony to his absolute innocence of the charge of malversation and barratry; it has been left to modern commentators to question it. In the letter to a Florentine friend, Dante speaks of his innocence manifest to all, innocentia manifesta quibuslibet, as though in direct answer to the fama publica referente of the Podestà’s sentence. His likening himself to Hippolytus is a no less emphatic protestation of innocence: “As Hippolytus departed from Athens, by reason of his pitiless and treacherous stepmother, so from Florence needs must thou depart. This is willed, this is already being sought, and soon will it be done for him who thinks it, there where Christ is put to sale each day” (Par. xvii. 46-51). “I hold my exile as an honour”:
L’essilio che m’è dato, on or mi tegno, he says in his canzone of the Tre donne. Had Dante completed the Convivio, he would probably have furnished us with a complete apologia in the fourteenth treatise, where he intended to comment upon this canzone and discuss Justice. “Justice,” he says in Conv. i. 12, “is so lovable that, as the philosopher says in the fifth of the Ethics, even her enemies love her, such as thieves and robbers; and therefore we see that her contrary, which is injustice, is especially hated (as is treachery, ingratitude, falseness, theft, rapine, deceit, and their like). The which are such inhuman sins that, to defend himself from the infamy of these, it is conceded by long usance that a man may speak of himself, and may declare himself to be faithful and loyal. Of this virtue I shall speak more fully in the fourteenth treatise.”