Ruskin, it will be remembered, was also looked after by the matchmakers in much the same way.
So Dante was married. Some say that his wife was the gentle lady who looked like Beatrice, but this is pure conjecture. Four children were born to them in seven years. One of these was named Beatrice, which seems to prove that the wife of Dante was aware of his great passion. One of the sons became a college professor, and wrote a commentary on "The Commedia," and also an unneeded defense of his father's character and motives in making love to a married lady.
Dante was a man of influence in the affairs of the city. He occupied civic offices of distinction, wrote addresses and occasionally poems, in which he glorified his friends and referred scathingly to his political adversaries.
Gemma must have been a woman of more than average brain and intelligence, for when her husband was banished from Florence by the successful Ghibellines, she kept her little family together, worked hard, educated her children, and it is said by Boccaccio lived honorably and indulged in no repining.
So far as we know, Dante sent no remittances home. He moved from one university to another, and accepted invitations from nobility to tarry at their castles. He dressed in melancholy black and read his poems to polite assemblies. Now and then he gave lectures. He was followed by spies, or thought he was, and now and then quarreled with his associates or host, and made due note of the fact, leaving the matter to be adjusted when he had time and wanted raw stock for his writings.
And all the time he mourned not for the loss of Gemma and his children, but for Beatrice. She it was who met him and Vergil at the gates of Paradise and guided them about the place, explaining its art, ethics and economics, and pointing out the notables.
Dante placed in Paradise all those who had befriended him most and praised his poems. People he did not like he deposited in Hell, for Dante was human. That is what Hell is for—a place to put people who disagree with us.
Milton was profoundly influenced by Dante, and in fact was very much like him, save that, though he had the felicity to be legally married three times, yet there is no sign of passionate love in his life. Henley says that without Dante we should have had no Milton, and how much Dante and Milton have influenced the popular conception of the Christian religion, no man can say. Even as conservative a man as Archdeacon Farrar, in one of his Clark lectures, said, "Our orthodox faith seems to trace a genesis to the genius of Dante, with Saint Paul and Jesus as secondary or contributing influences."
After five years' wandering, Dante was notified that he could return to Florence on making due apology to the reigning powers and walking in the procession of humble transgressors.
The letter he wrote in reply is still in existence. He scorned pardon, since he had been guilty of no offense, and he would return with honor or not at all.