apartments were assigned to them in the palace, designated by various symbols; a Triumph for the warriors; Groves of the Muses for the poets; Mercury for the artists; Paradise for the preachers; and for all, inconstant Fortune. Cangrande likewise received at his court his illustrious prisoners of war: Giacomo da Carrara, Vanne Scornazano, Albertino Mussato, and many others. All had their private attendants, and a table equally well served. At times Cangrande invited some of them to his own table, particularly Dante, and Guido di Castel di Reggio, exiled from his country with the friends of liberty, and who for his simplicity was called “the simple Lombard.”
Verona became in this way the home for every exile of note or of worth who sought to it, and hospitality and courtesy were, as has been seen, extended freely to all. Petrarch alludes to this when he speaks of Cangrande as “the consoler of the houseless and the afflicted,” and he then goes on to dilate on what may have been some of the causes which led to the estrangement between Dante and the lord of Verona, and that brought about for a time a coldness between Cangrande and his haughty client. “When banished from his country he (Dante) resided at the court of Cangrande, where the afflicted universally found consolation and an asylum. He at first was held in much honour by Cane, but afterwards he by degrees fell out of favour, and day by day less pleased that lord. Actors and parasites of every description used to be collected together at the same banquet; one of these, most impudent in his words and in his obscene gestures, obtained much importance and favour with many. Cane, suspecting that Dante disliked this, called the man before him, and, having greatly praised him to our poet, said: ‘I wonder how it is that this silly fellow should know how to please all, and that thou canst not, who art said to be so wise.’ Dante answered: ‘Thou wouldest not wonder if thou knewest that friendship is founded on similarity of habits and disposition.’ It is also related that at his table, which was too indiscriminately hospitable, where buffoons sat down with Dante, and where jests passed which must have been repulsive to every person of refinement, but disgraceful when uttered by the superior in rank to his inferior, a boy was once concealed under the table, who, collecting the bones that were thrown there by the guests, according to the custom of those times, heaped them up at Dante’s feet. When the tables were removed, the great heap appearing, Cane pretended to show great astonishment and said: ‘Certainly Dante is a great devourer of meat.’ To which Dante readily replied, ‘My Lord, you would not have seen so many bones had I been a dog.’ ”
Other noble refugees who found an asylum at Verona were Uguccione della Faggiuola, lord of Pisa and Lucca, who died at Vicenza while in Cangrande’s service and was honourably buried in Verona; Spinetta Malaspina, and Fazio degli Uberti.
The importance and position occupied by Cangrande in the world of letters and amongst men of note must not however make us forgetful as to the part he played as a politician. Tradition saw in him the rightful heir of Imperial ideas; and many a writer has made it clear (at least from his own point of view) that in the “Veltro” prophecy Dante intended this lord of Verona, and that it was he who was to be the “Veltro” (Greyhound) whose reign was to bring widespread good to Italy. (Inf. I. 101.) The controversy on that point, as is well known, has lasted for centuries, and is by no means ended yet.
Nor is this Dante’s only allusion to Cangrande—assuming, that is to say, that he is indeed the “Veltro” of the first Canto of the Inferno. There is a fresh allusion to this lord of Verona in the thirty-third Canto of the Purgatorio, V. 43, which, according to Scartazzini, refers without doubt to Cangrande. The passage is one of those mystic allusions which have puzzled the great poet’s commentators in all ages, and whose enigma is yet unsolved. Dante says how that—
“Verily I see, and hence narrate it,
The stars already near to bring the time,
From every hindrance safe, and every bar,
Within which a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five,
One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman
And that same giant who is sinning with her.”[25]