[105] It is true that Villani not only says that ‘he went to study at Bologna,’ but also that ‘he went to Paris and many parts of the world’ (Cronica, ix. 136), and that Villani, of all contemporary or nearly contemporary writers, is by far the most worthy of credence. But he proves to be more than once in error regarding Dante; making him, e.g., die in a wrong month and be buried in a wrong church at Ravenna. And the ‘many parts of the world’ shows that here he is dealing in hearsay of the vaguest sort. Nor can much weight be given to Boccaccio when he sends Dante to Bologna and Paris. But Benvenuto of Imola, who lectured on the Comedy at Bologna within fifty years of Dante’s death, says that Dante studied there. It would indeed be strange if he did not, and at more than one period, Bologna being the University nearest Florence. Proof of Dante’s residence in Paris has been found in his familiar reference to the Rue du Fouarre (Parad. x. 137). His graphic description of the coast between Lerici and Turbia (Purg. iii. 49, iv. 25) certainly seems to show a familiarity with the Western as well as the Eastern Rivieras of Genoa. But it scarcely follows that he was on his way to Paris when he visited them.
[106] Inf. xiii. 58.
[107] ‘O ye, who have hitherto been following me in some small craft, ... put not further to sea, lest, losing sight of me, you lose yourselves’ (Parad. ii. 1). But, to tell the truth, Dante is never so weak as a poet as when he is most the philosopher or the theologian. The following list of books more or less known to him is not given as complete:—The Vulgate, beginning with St. Jerome’s Prologue; Aristotle, through the Latin translation then in vogue; Averroes, etc.; Thomas Aquinas and the other Schoolmen; much of the Civil and Canon law; Boethius; Homer only in scraps, through Aristotle, etc.; Virgil, Cicero in part, Livy, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Lucan, and Statius; the works of Brunetto Latini; the poetical literature of Provence, France, and Italy, including the Arthurian Romances—the favourite reading of the Italian nobles, and the tales of Charlemagne and his Peers—equally in favour with the common people. There is little reason to suppose that among the treatises of a scientific and quasi-scientific kind that he fell in with, and of which he was an eager student, were included the works of Roger Bacon. These there was a conspiracy among priests and schoolmen to keep buried. Dante seems to have set little store on ecclesiastical legends of wonder; at least he gives them a wide berth in his works.
[108] In the notes to Fraticelli’s Vita di Dante (Florence 1861) are given copies of documents relating to the property of the Alighieri, and of Dante in particular. In 1343 his son Jacopo, by payment of a small fine, recovered vineyards and farms that had been his father’s.—Notes to Chap. iii. Fraticelli’s admirable Life is now in many respects out of date. He accepts, e.g., Dino Compagni as an authority, and believes in the romantic story of the letter of Fra Ilario.
[109] The details are given by Witte, Dante-Forschungen, vol ii. p. 61. The amount borrowed by Dante and his brother (and a friend) comes to nearly a thousand gold florins. Witte takes this as equivalent to 37,000 francs, i.e. nearly £1500. But the florin being the eighth of an ounce, or about ten shillings’ worth of gold, a thousand florins would be equal only to £500—representing, of course, an immensely greater sum now-a-days.
[110] Purg. viii. 76.
[111] See in Scartazzini, Dante Alighieri, 1879, page 552, extract from the will of her mother Maria Donati, dated February 1314. Many of these Florentine dates are subject to correction, the year being usually counted from Lady-Day. ‘In 1880 a document was discovered which proves Gemma to have been engaged in a law-suit in 1332.—Il Propugnatore, xiii^a. 156,’—Scheffer-Boichorst, Aus Dantes Verbannung, page 213.
[112] Purg. xxiv. 37.
[113] Inf. xxi. 40.
[114] In questo mirifico poeta trovò ampissimo luego la lussuria; e non solamente ne’ giovanili anni, ma ancora ne’ maturi.—Boccaccio, La Vita di Dante. After mentioning that Dante was married, he indulges in a long invective against marriage; confessing, however, that he is ignorant of whether Dante experienced the miseries he describes. His conclusion on the subject is that philosophers should leave marriage to rich fools, to nobles, and to handicraftsmen.