[95] See at Purg. xx. 43 Dante’s invective against Philip and the Capets in general.
[96] Henry had come to Italy with the Pope’s approval. He was crowned by the Cardinals who were in Rome as Legates.
[97] Parad. xxx. 136. High in Heaven Dante sees an ample chair with a crown on it, and is told it is reserved for Henry. He is to sit among those who are clothed in white. The date assigned to the action of the Comedy, it will be remembered, is the year 1300.
[98] Inf. xix. 82, where the Gascon Clement is described as a ‘Lawless Pastor from the West.’
[99] The ingenious speculations of Troya (Del Veltro Allegorico di Dante) will always mark a stage in the history of the study of Dante, but as is often the case with books on the subject, his shows a considerable gap between the evidence adduced and the conclusions drawn from it. He would make Dante to have been for many years a satellite of the great Ghibeline chief. Dante’s temper or pride, however we call it, seems to have been such as to preserve him from ever remaining attached for long to any patron.
[100] Inf. x. 81.
[101] The Convito is in Italian, and his words are: ‘wherever this language is spoken.’
[102] His letter to the Florentines and that to the Emperor are dated in 1311, from ‘Near the sources of the Arno’—that is, from the Casentino, where the Guidi of Romena dwelt. If the letter of condolence with the Counts Oberto and Guido of Romena on the death of their uncle is genuine, it has great value for the passage in which he excuses himself for not having come to the funeral:—‘It was not negligence or ingratitude, but the poverty into which I am fallen by reason of my exile. This, like a cruel persecutor, holds me as in a prison-house where I have neither horse nor arms; and though I do all I can to free myself, I have failed as yet.’ The letter has no date. Like the other ten or twelve epistles attributed to Dante, it is in Latin.
[103] There is a splendid passage in praise of this family, Purg. viii. 121. A treaty is on record in which Dante acts as representative of the Malaspini in settling the terms of a peace between them and the Bishop of Luni in October 1306.
[104] The authority for this is Benvenuto of Imola in his comment on the Comedy (Purg. xi.). The portrait of Dante by Giotto, still in Florence, but ruined by modern bungling restoration, is usually believed to have been executed in 1301 or 1302. But with regard to this, see the note at the end of this essay.