All names however pale before that of Dante Alighieri, who, though in no sense a Veronese, found here a haven in his day of adversity and exile, and whose acknowledgment of the hospitality accorded him is of world-wide renown. The causes that brought Dante to Verona have been much discussed. It may be that the strong Ghibelline feelings which predominated in the city made the Florentine exile certain of being understood there—at least as far as his political sentiments were concerned. The renown too possessed by Verona as to the encouragement given within her walls to learning and men of letters may have attracted him. Or more probably still, the knowledge that at the court of the Scaligers he would find not a welcome only, but also a home where his talents would be recognised and appreciated, may have induced him to come to Verona. This last hypothesis may to some extent be borne out by the opening words of the “epistola” written by Dante to Cangrande della Scala at the time he dedicated the Paradiso to him. This letter, whose authenticity has given rise to much discussion, but which in these latter times is generally accepted as being his, begins by saying: “I heard the praise of your celebrated magnificence; I came to Verona to assure myself of the same. There I saw your magnanimous doings; I saw, I experienced your benefactions; and while I had at first believed that the fame of them was superior to the deeds, I became convinced that the deeds were superior to the fame.”
Dante’s choice of Verona was a wise one; and he found there a reception and a refuge that must have soothed to some extent the angry wounded susceptibilities of that “spirito sdegnoso.”
The first of the princely house of della Scala to receive Dante was Bartolomeo, who, though he is not mentioned by name by the poet, was without doubt the “grand Lombard” spoken of by Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida in Paradiso, canto xvii. 70. For Bartolomeo and Cangrande della Scala Dante has only words of praise; but some other members of their family come in for the full force of the poet’s wrath, and he speaks in scathing terms of Alberto and Alboino, the former the predecessor, the latter the successor of Bartolomeo. Nor is he less bitter against an illegitimate son of Alberto della Scala, whom his father had made abbot of S. Zeno, and who exercised that office from 1291 to 1314. Speaking of this deformed priest he says,
“ ... in his whole body, sick
And worse in mind, and who was evil born”
( ... mal del corpo intero—E della mente peggio, e che mal nacque. Purg. xviii. 124, etc.), and how his father “with one foot in the grave” (con un piè dentro la fossa) had “put him in the place of the true pastor” (ha posto in loco di suo pastor vero).
The reason of Dante’s dislike for Alboino, who he must have known intimately, has never come to light. The man’s want of energy, his indifference as to the Ghibelline cause, his inefficiency as a warrior, may perhaps have aroused that contempt for him which Dante expresses most openly in the Convito, iv. 16. Cangrande on the other hand calls forth his admiration; and that Dante dedicated to him the last part of the Divine Comedy is proof enough of the esteem and affection in which he held him. Another proof too is forthcoming in the fact adduced by Boccaccio and Giovanni Querini that Dante was wont to send the cantos of the Paradiso as he wrote them, and before submitting them to any other eye, to the lord of Verona. The poet recognises too the renown of Cangrande’s deeds by putting into the mouth of Cacciaguida the prophecy as to “how notable his works shall be” (che notabile fien l’opere sue); words so concise and so forcible in their depth and truth that they are introduced in the epitaph above Cangrande’s tomb in a Latin form.
“Little is known for certain of Dante’s actual residence in Verona,” says Cipolla; though he quotes from Ampère’s Voyage Dantesque to show the favourable impression that the town made on this pilgrim not generally prone to be satisfied, nor minded to refrain from a sharp and unfriendly criticism. “Here at last is an Italian city of which Dante has said nothing injurious. She owes this almost unique exception to the hospitality which she offered him.”
Dante alludes several times to the town itself in his writings. He speaks so graphically of the game of the Palio (Inf. xv. 121) as to make one fancy he must have witnessed it in person. It has been said that his idea of the “bolgie” of the Inferno came to him from the shape of the arena at Verona, and that standing on the summit of that vast building he conceived the notion of creating his Hell on the same lines as those presented before his eyes. Whether this is really so or not cannot be definitely affirmed, but it is certain that no other poet has mapped out an Inferno on the same lines as that of Dante, while the form he has given it resembles very closely that of the amphitheatre of Verona.
Other memories than those which spoke to him only of the town were also present to Dante’s mind when he was writing his great poem. The country in the heart of the valley of the Adige is depicted by him at the opening of the twelfth canto of the Inferno; and the surroundings of the Lake of Garda are spoken of equally in the Inferno at canto XX. 64, etc.
It was at Verona that the remarks as to Dante’s powers of visiting the Infernal regions first arose. As his “melancholy, pensive” form walked silently through the streets and byeways of the city, the women of the lower classes pointed him out one to another as “he who went to Hell and returned when he listed, and brought news up above of those who were there below.” It may be that such unsolicited fame would bring a smile to the solemn, set features, and prove more acceptable than the applause vouchsafed by Cangrande’s herd of courtiers.