After the proem, in which the poet’s intention is set forth, the Vita Nuova falls into three divisions. Each contains ten poems set as gems in a golden prose framework, the end of each part being indicated by a reference to new matter, nuova matera (xvii., xxxi.). The whole book is closed by an epilogue containing one sonnet, una cosa nuova, “a new thing,” with an introductory episode and a visionary sequel. In the first part Dante mainly depicts the effects in himself of Beatrice’s beauty, the loveliness of the belle membra, “the fair members in which I was enclosed” (Purg. xxxi. 50); in the second, the miracles wrought by the splendour of her soul; the third contains his worship of her memory, when “the delight of her fairness, departing from our view, became great spiritual beauty that spreads through heaven a light of love, gives bliss to the Angels, and makes their lofty and subtle intellect wonder” (xxxiv.).
The first part (ii. to xvii.) contains nine of Dante’s earliest sonnets and one ballata, with the story of his youthful love up to a certain point, where, after having passed through a spiritual crisis, he resolves to write upon a new and nobler matter than the past. We have the wondrous effects of Beatrice’s salutation; the introductory sonnet resulting in the friendship with Guido Cavalcanti, to whom the book is dedicated, and who seems to have induced Dante to write in Italian instead of Latin (V. N. xxxi.); his concealment of his love by feigning himself enamoured of two other ladies. Throughout the Vita Nuova, while Beatrice on earth or in heaven is, as it were, the one central figure in the picture, there is a lovely background of girlish faces behind her; just as, in the paintings of many early Italian masters, there is shown in the centre the Madonna and her Divine Babe, while around her all the clouds and sky are full of sweetly smiling cherubs’ heads. There have been students of the book who supposed that, while Beatrice represents the ideal of womanhood, these others are the real Florentine women in whom Dante for a while sought this glorious ideal of his mind; others have endeavoured in one or other of the minor characters of the Vita Nuova to recognise the Matelda of the Earthly Paradise. And there are visions and dreams introduced, in which Love himself appears in visible form, now as a lord of terrible aspect within a cloud of fire with Beatrice in his arms, now by a river-side in the garb of a traveller to bid Dante feign love for another lady, now as a youth clad in very white raiment to console him when Beatrice refuses her salutation. It may be that these two latter episodes mean that Dante was for a time enamoured of some girl whom he afterwards represented as the second lady who shielded his real love from discovery, and that he resolved to turn from it to a nobler worship of Beatrice. The most beautiful sonnet of this group is the fifth:
Cavalcando l’altr’ier per un cammino,
“As I rode the other day along a path, thinking of the journey that was irksome to me,” the journey in question being probably to Bologna (cf. p. 12).
This part is not wanting in the “burning tears” which Leonardo Bruni finds such a stumbling-block in Boccaccio’s narrative. Its lyrics show the influence of Guido Cavalcanti, particularly in the personification of the faculties of the soul as spiriti, and in the somewhat extravagant metaphors with which Dante depicts his torment in love. But a complete change comes. The mysterious episode of Dante’s agony at a wedding feast, where Beatrice mocks him, marks a crisis in his new life. Io tenni li piedi in quella parte de la vita di là da la quale non si puote ire più per intendimento di ritornare, “I have set my feet on that part of life beyond the which one can go no further with intention of returning.” He crushes the more personal element out of his love, and will be content to worship her from afar; he has sufficiently made manifest his own condition, even if he should ever after abstain from addressing her. “It behoved me to take up a new matter and one nobler than the past.”
This matera nuova e più nobile che la passata is the subject of the second part of the Vita Nuova (xviii. to xxviii.). The poet’s youthful love has become spiritual adoration for a living personification of all beauty and nobleness. Since Beatrice denies him her salutation, Love has placed all his beatitude in those words that praise his lady: so he tells the lady of very sweet speech, donna di motto leggiadro parlare, who questions him concerning this love, and whose rebuke marks the turning-point of the whole book. And, for the first time, the supreme poet is revealed in the great canzone:
Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore,
“Ladies that have understanding of love,” uniting earth and heaven in glorification of her who was the giver of blessing. Here the apotheosis of womanhood, sketched by Guido Guinizelli, is developed with mystical fullness, and there is even perhaps a hint of some future work in honour of Beatrice that will deal with the world beyond the grave. The two sonnets that follow are a kind of supplement; the first:
Amore e ’l cor gentil sono una cosa,
“Love and the gentle heart are one same thing,” gives a definition of love, elaborating the Guinizellian doctrine; the second: