Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Dante’s name begins to appear in public documents as taking a share in the business of the State. Thus he spoke in the “Council of the Hundred” on December 10, 1296, and in the following March, in opposition, it would seem, to a proposal of a grant to King Charles II. of Apulia. In May, 1299, he acted as ambassador from Florence to the neighbouring city of San Gemignano, the only one of all the numerous embassies ascribed to him by some biographers in which modern criticism will still allow us to believe. Finally, in 1300, probably from June 15th to August 15th, he served his term as Prior.
The Constitution of Florence at this time was somewhat complicated. It will be sufficient to say here that the government was carried on by a committee of six priors, who held office for two months only; and that in order to be eligible for the offices of State a man had to be enrolled in one of the twelve trading guilds known as Arts, of which seven ranked as “greater,” five as “less.” Dante belonged to one of the “greater arts,” that of the speziali, “dealers in spices,” which included the apothecaries and, as it is believed, the booksellers. The number of priors was so large, and their tenure of office so short, that the selection of any particular citizen would hardly imply more than that he was regarded as a man of good business capacity; but in 1300 public affairs in Florence were in such a critical state, that one may well suppose the citizens to have been especially careful in their choice. In the previous April an accusation had been brought by Lapo Salterelli (afterwards one of Dante’s fellow-exiles, not held by him in much esteem), who then was Prior, against three citizens of Florence—Simon Gherardi, Noffo Quintavalle, and Cambio, son of Sesto, of conspiring against the State. The facts are somewhat obscure, but, as it appears that they were all connected with the Papal Court, and that Boniface made strong efforts to get the fine imposed on them remitted, we may conjecture that they had in some way abetted his scheme of “getting Tuscany into his hands.” In a remarkable letter addressed to the Bishop of Florence, in which a good deal of the argument, and even some of the language, of Dante’s De Monarchia is curiously paralleled, of course from the opposite point of view, the Pope requires the attendance before him of Lapo (whom he styles vere lapis offensionis) and the other accusers. As may be supposed, no notice was taken of this requisition, and the fines were duly enforced.
Boniface’s letter is dated from Anagni, on May 15th. Before it was written, the first actual bloodshed in the feud between the Black and White parties had taken place. Some of the young Donati and Cerchi, with their respective friends, were in the Piazza di Santa Trinità on May 1st, looking on at a dance. Taunts were exchanged, blows followed, and “Ricoverino, son of Messer Ricovero de’ Cerchi, by misadventure got his nose cut off his face.” The leading Guelfs, seeing what a chance the split in their party would offer to the Ghibelines, sought the mediation of the Pope. Boniface was of course willing enough to interfere, and, as has been said, sent Matthew of Acquasparta, Cardinal of Ostia, a former General of the Franciscans, to Florence as peacemaker. He arrived just about the time when the new Priors, including, as we must suppose, Dante, were entering on office, and was received with great honour. But when it came to measures of pacification, he seems to have had nothing better to suggest than the selection of the Priors by lot, in place of their nomination (as had hitherto been the custom) by their predecessors and the chiefs of the guilds. “Those of the White party,” says Villani, “who controlled the government of the country, through fear of losing their position, and of being hoodwinked by the Pope and the Legate through the reform aforesaid, took the worser counsel, and would not obey.” So the familiar interdict was launched once more, and the Legate departed.
In the city, things went from bad to worse. At the funeral of a lady belonging to the Frescobaldi, a White family, in the following December, a bad brawl arose, in which the Cerchi had the worst of it. But when the Donati, emboldened by this success, attacked their rivals on the highway, the Commune took notice of it, and the assailants were imprisoned, in default of paying their fines. Some of the Cerchi were also fined, and, though able to pay, went to prison, apparently from motives of economy, contrary to Vieri’s advice. Unluckily for them, the governor of the prison, one of their own faction, “an accursed Ser Neri degli Abati,” a scion of a family which seems, if we may trust Dante’s mention of some of its other members, to have made a “speciality” of treacherous behaviour, introduced into the prison fare a poisoned millet-pudding, whereof two of the Cerchi died, and two of the opposite party as well,[27] “and no blood-feud came about for that”—probably because it was felt that the score was equal.
The Blacks now made a move. The “captains of the Guelf party,” who, though holding no official position, seem to have exercised a sort of imperium in imperio, were on their side; and a meeting was held in Holy Trinity Church, at which it was resolved to send a deputation to Boniface, requesting him to take once again what seems to us—and indeed was—the fatal step of calling in French aid. The stern prophecy which Dante puts into the mouth of Hugh Capet in Purgatory was to be fulfilled:—
“I see the time at hand
That forth from France invites another Charles
To make himself and kindred better known.
Unarm’d he issues, saving with that lance
Which the arch-traitor tilted with; and that
He carries with so home a thrust, as rives
The bowels of poor Florence.”
We may probably date from this Dante’s final severance from the Guelf party; and, at any rate, we may judge from it the real value of Guelf patriotism.
It must be remembered that the Black faction was still but a faction. The conspiracy leaked out, and popular indignation was aroused. The Signoria that is, the Priors, took action. Corso Donati and the other leaders were heavily fined, and this time the fines were paid. Probably they did not wish to taste Ser Neri degli Abati’s cookery a second time. A good many of the junior members of the party were banished to Castello della Pieve; and at the same time, “to remove all jealousy,” several of the White leaders were sent to Serezzano (which we now call Sarzana)—a weak and unlucky attempt at compromise. They were, indeed, soon allowed to return, their place of exile being unhealthy; so much so that one of them, Dante’s most intimate friend, Guido Cavalcanti, died in the course of the winter from illness contracted there.
Cardinal Matthew seems not to have actually left Florence till after the beginning of 1301. We are told that among his other demands (probably made on this occasion), was one to the effect that Florence should furnish a hundred men-at-arms for the Pope’s service; and that Dante, who, after his term of office as Prior, remained a member of the council, moved that nothing should be done in the matter. Indeed, in the scanty notices which we have of his doings in this critical period, he appears as the steady opponent of all outside interference in the affairs of Florence, whether by Pope or Frenchman. In the face of this it is hard to understand how the famous story of his having gone on an embassy to Rome—“If I stay, who goes? If I go, who stays?”—can ever have obtained credence. Some words like those he may well have used, in the magnificent self-consciousness which elsewhere made him boast of having formed a party by himself; but we cannot suppose that he would at any time in the course of 1301 have thus put his head into the lion’s mouth. That Boniface was at the time of the supposed mission not at Rome but at Anagni is a minor detail.