The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno

by Dante Alighieri

Vasari, in his Lives of the Painters, tells that in his day the portrait of Dante by Giotto was still to be seen in the chapel of the Podesta’s palace in Florence. Writers of an earlier date had already drawn attention to this work.[143] But in the course of an age when Italians cared little for Dante, and less for Giotto, it was allowed to be buried out of sight; and when at length there came a revival of esteem for these great men, the alterations in the interior arrangement of the palace were found to have been so sweeping that it was even uncertain which out of many chambers had formerly served as the chapel. Twenty years after a fruitless attempt had been made to discover whether or not the portrait was still in existence, Signor Aubrey Bezzi, encouraged by Mr. Wilde and Mr. Kirkup, took the first step in a search (1839) which was to end by restoring to the world what is certainly the most interesting of all portraits, if account be taken of its beauty, as well as of who was its author and who its subject.

On the removal from it of a layer of lime, one of the end walls of what had been the chapel was found to be covered by a fresco painting, evidently the work of Giotto, and representing a Paradise—the subject in which Dante’s portrait was known to occur. As is usual in such works, from the time of Giotto downwards, the subject is treated so as to allow of the free introduction of contemporary personages. Among these was a figure in a red gown, which there was no difficulty in recognising as the portrait of Dante. It shows him younger and with a sweeter expression than does Raphael’s Dante, or Masaccio’s,[144] or that in the Cathedral of Florence,[145] or that of the mask said to have been taken after his death. But to all of them it bears a strong resemblance.

The question of when this portrait was painted will easily be seen to be one of much importance in connection with Dante’s biography. The fresco it belongs to is found to contain a cardinal, and a young man, who, because he wears his hair long and has a coronet set on his cap, is known to be meant for a French prince.[146] If, as is usually assumed, this prince is Charles of Valois, then the date of the event celebrated in the fresco is 1301 or 1302. With regard to when the work was executed, Messrs Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their valuable book, say as follows:[147]—

‘All inferences to be deduced from the subject and form of these frescos point to the date of 1301-2. It may be inquired whether they were executed by Giotto at the time, and this inquiry can only be satisfied approximatively. It may be inferred that Dante’s portrait would hardly have been introduced into a picture so conspicuously visible as this, had not the poet at the time been influent in Florence.... Dante’s age in the fresco corresponds with the date of 1302, and is that of a man of thirty-five. He had himself enjoyed the highest office of Florence from June to August 1300.[148] In the fresco he does not wear the dress of the “Priori,” but he holds in the ranks of those near Charles of Valois an honourable place. It may be presumed that the frescos were executed previous[149] to Dante’s exile, and this view is confirmed by the technical and artistic progress which they reveal. They exhibit, indeed, the master in a higher sphere of development than at Assisi and Rome.’

This account of the subject of the work and the probable date of its execution may, I think, be accepted as containing all that is to be said in favour of the current opinion on the matter. That writer after writer has adopted that opinion without a sign of doubt as to its credibility must surely have arisen from failure to observe the insuperable difficulties it presents.

Both Charles of Valois and the Cardinal Acquasparta were in Florence during part of the winter of 1301-1302; but the circumstances under which they were there make it highly improbable that the Commonwealth was anxious to do them honour beyond granting them the outward show of respect which it would have been dangerous to refuse. Earlier in the year 1301 the Cardinal Acquasparta, having failed in gaining the object which brought him to Florence, had, as it were, shaken the dust of the city from off his feet and left the people of it under interdict. While Charles of Valois was in Florence the Cardinal returned to make a second attempt to reconcile the opposing parties, failed a second time, and again left the city under an interdict—if indeed the first had ever been raised. On the occasion of his first visit, the Whites, who were then in power, would have none of his counsels; on his second, the Blacks in their turn despised them.[150] There would therefore have been something almost satirical in the compliment, had the Commonwealth resolved to give him a place in a triumphal picture.

As for Charles of Valois, though much was expected from an alliance with him while he was still at a distance, the very party that invited his presence was soon disgusted with him owing to his faithlessness and greed. The earlier part of his stay was disturbed by pillage and bloodshed. Nor is it easy to imagine how, at any time during his residence of five months, the leading citizens could have either the time or the wish to arrange for honouring him in a fashion he was not the man to care for. His one craving was for money, and still more money; and any leisure the members of public bodies had to spare from giving heed to their own interests and securing vengeance upon their opponents, was devoted to holding the common purse shut as tightly as they could against their avaricious Pacificator. When he at last delivered the city from his presence no one would have the heart to revive the memory of his disastrous visit.

But if, in all this confusion of Florentine affairs, Giotto did receive a commission to paint in the palace of the Podesta, yet it remains incredible that he should have been suffered to assign to Dante, of all men, a place of honour in the picture. No citizen had more stubbornly opposed the policy which brought Charles of Valois to Florence, and that Charles was in the city was reason enough for Dante to keep out of it. In his absence, he was sentenced in January 1302 to pay a ruinously heavy fine, and in the following March he was condemned to be put to death if ever he was caught. On fuller acquaintance his fellow-citizens liked the Frenchman as little as he, but this had no effect in softening their dislike or removing their fear of Dante. We may be sure that any friends he may still have had in Florence, as their influence could not protect his goods from confiscation or him from banishment, would hardly care to risk their own safety by urging, while his condemnation was still fresh, the admission of his portrait among those of illustrious Florentines.[151] It is true that there have been instances of great artists having reached so high a pitch of fame as to be able to dictate terms to patrons, however exalted. In his later years Giotto could perhaps have made such a point a matter of treaty with his employers, but in 1301 he was still young,[152] and great although his fame already was, he could scarcely have ventured to insist on the Republic’s confessing its injustice to his friend; as it would have done had it consented that Dante, newly driven into exile, should obtain a place of honour in a work painted at the public cost.

These considerations seem to make it highly improbable that Giotto’s wall-painting was meant to do honour to Charles of Valois and the Cardinal Acquasparta. But if it should still be held that it was painted in 1302, we must either cease to believe, in spite of all that Vasari and the others say, that the portrait is meant for Dante; or else confess it to be inexplicable how it got there. A way out of the difficulty begins to open up as soon as we allow ourselves some latitude in speculating as to when Giotto may have painted the fresco. The order in which that artist’s works were produced is very imperfectly settled; and it may easily be that the position in Vasari’s pages of the mention made by him of this fresco has given rise to a misunderstanding regarding the date of it. He speaks of it at the very beginning of his Life of Giotto. But this he does because he needs an illustration of what he has been saying in his opening sentences about the advance that painter made on Cimabue. Only after making mention of Dante’s portrait does he begin his chronological list of Giotto’s works; to the portrait he never returns, and so, as far as Vasari is concerned, it is without a date. Judging of it by means of Mr. Kirkup’s careful and beautiful sketch—and unfortunately we have now no other means of knowing what the original was like—it may safely be asserted to be in Giotto’s ripest style.[153] Everything considered, it is therefore allowable to search the Florentine chronicles lower down for an event more likely to be the subject of Giotto’s fresco than that usually fixed upon.

We read in John Villani that in the middle of the year 1326 the Cardinal Gianni Orsini came to Florence as Papal Legate and Pacificator of Tuscany. The city was greatly pleased at his coming, and as an earnest of gratitude for his services presented him with a cup containing a thousand florins.[154] A month later there arrived Charles Duke of Calabria, the eldest son of King Robert of Naples, and great-grandson of Charles of Anjou. He came as Protector of the Commonwealth, which office—an extraordinary one, and with a great salary attached to it—he had been elected to hold for five years. Never before had a spectacle like that of his entry been offered to Florence. Villani gives a long list of the barons who rode in his train, and tells that in his squadrons of men-at-arms there were no fewer than two hundred knights. The chronicler pauses to bid the reader note how great an enterprise his fellow-citizens had shown in bringing to sojourn among them, and in their interest, not only such a powerful lord as the Duke of Calabria was, but a Papal Legate as well. Italy counted it a great thing, he says, and he deems that the whole world ought to know of it.[155] Charles took up his abode in the Podesta’s palace. He appears to have gained a better place in the hearts of the Florentines than what they were used to give to strangers and princes. When a son was born to him, all the city rejoiced, and it mourned with him when, in a few weeks, he lost the child. After seventeen months’ experience of his rule the citizens were sorry to lose him, and bade him a farewell as hearty as their welcome had been. To some of them, it is true, the policy seemed a dangerous one which bore even the appearance of subjecting the Republic to the Royal House of Naples; and some of them could have wished that he ‘had shown more vigour in civil and military affairs. But he was a gentle lord, popular with the townsfolk, and in the course of his residence he greatly improved the condition of things in Florence, and brought to a close many feuds.’[156] They felt that the nine hundred thousand gold florins spent on him and his men had, on the whole, been well laid out.