The attachment of Michael Scot to his master, the Emperor Frederick II., may be conceived as acting in a double sense to procure him his mysterious fame. With the Guelfs, who bitterly opposed that great monarch and his followers, it of course became a reason for believing him to have practised the blackest of arts. With the Ghibellines, on the other hand, who formed the imperial party, and saw a very Arthur in their famous leader, it served to confirm his character as a Mage and man of mysterious might.
Commencing then with one of the first, and certainly the most famous of the authors who have spoken of Scot in this romantic and legendary style, the observation just made will enable us to understand without much difficulty the sense of Dante’s reference to the magician. The poet represents himself as reaching the fourth division of the eighth infernal circle, when Virgil draws his attention to one of those who suffer there, and says:
‘Michele Scotto, fù, che veramente
Delle magiche frode seppe il giuoco.’[298]
Dante was a Ghibelline, and must therefore be supposed to have known well the tradition of commanding supernatural power woven by his party about the name of Scot. There is, however, a strong element of contempt and reproof in his lines, and this must be explained by a point of view which was peculiar to himself. The Commedia, and especially the Inferno, where this passage occurs, is nothing if not a retrospect of the past. In it Dante calls up the mighty dead and subjects them to review; his principle of judgment being largely, but by no means solely, drawn from political considerations. Even more decidedly was it moral, and thus, while in not a few instances he displays the working of party-spirit, in others he permits himself to part altogether with the current Ghibelline views.
His reference to Michael Scot, then, is undoubtedly a case of the latter kind. As a seer whose attention was fixed on the past he was naturally impatient of those who pretended to unfold the future. Scot, as the author of prophetical verses, seemed to Dante a fair object for censure, as one who had degraded the sacred art of the bard to serve the purpose of a charlatan. He placed him with Amphiareus, with Teiresias and the other diviners, who, because they sought to pry into the future, appeared to the poet with their heads turned backward in punishment of their presumption. An additional proof that this was in fact the reason for Dante’s harsh dealing with Scot may be seen in the Dittamondo of Fazio degli Uberti. This poem, composed towards the end of the fourteenth century, was modelled on the Divine Comedy, and expressly formed to expound it. Here are the lines which correspond in the Dittamondo to those of Dante relating to Michael Scot:
‘In questo tempo che m’odi contare
Michele Scotto fù, che per sua arte
Sapeva Simon Mago contraffare,
E se tu leggerai nelle sue carte