"Lamenting they from out my breast did go,
And uttering a voice that often led
The grievous tears unto my saddened eyes.
"But those which issued with the greatest woe,
'O noble soul,' they in departing said,
'To-day makes up the year since thou to heaven didst rise.'"
The preceding passage is one of the many in the "Vita Nuova" which are of peculiar interest, as illustrating the personal tastes of Dante, and the common modes of his life. "I was drawing," he says, "the figure of an Angel"; and this statement is the more noticeable, because Giotto, the man who set painting on its modern course, was not yet old enough to have exercised any influence upon Dante.[J] The friendship which afterwards existed between them had its beginning at a later period. At this time Cimabue still held the field. He often painted angels around the figures of the Virgin and her Child; and in his most famous picture, in the Church of Sta. Maria Novella, there are certain angels of which Vasari says, with truth, that, though painted in the Greek manner, they show an approach toward the modern style of drawing. These angels may well have seemed beautiful to eyes accustomed to the hard unnaturalness of earlier works. The love of Art pervaded Florence, and a nature so sensitive and so sympathetic as Dante's could not but partake of it in the fullest measure. Art was then no adjunct of sentimentalism, no encourager of idleness. It was connected with all that was most serious and all that was most delightful in life. It is difficult, indeed, to realize the delight which it gave, and the earnestness with which it was followed at this period, when it seemed, as by a miracle, to fling off the winding-sheet which had long wrapped its stiffened limbs, and to come forth with new and unexampled life.
[Footnote J: In this year, 1291, Giotto was but fifteen years old, and probably a student with Cimabue. Benvenuto da Imola, who lectured publicly at Bologna on the Divina Commedia in the year 1378, reports, that, while Giotto, still a young man, was painting at Padua, Dante visited him. And Vasari says, that it was a tradition, that Giotto had painted, in a chapel at Naples, scenes out of the Apocalypse, from designs furnished him by the poet. If we may believe another tradition, which there seems indeed little reason to doubt, Giotto went to Ravenna during the last years of Dante's life, that he might spend there some time in company with his exiled friend.]
The strength and the intelligence of Dante's love of Art are shown in many beautiful passages and allusions in the "Divina Commedia." There was something of universality, not only in his imagination, but also in his acquisitions. Of the sources of learning which were then open, there was not one which he had not visited; of the fountains of inspiration, not one out of which he had not drunk. All the arts—poetry, painting, sculpture, and music—were alike dear to him. His Canzoni were written to be sung; and one of the most charming scenes in the great poem is that in which is described his meeting with his friend Casella, the musician, who sang to him one of his own Canzoni so sweetly, that "the sweetness still within me sounds."[K]
[Footnote K: This Canzone, to the exposition of which the third Trattato of the Convito is devoted, has been inimitably translated by the Reverend Charles T. Brooks. We believe it to be the happiest version of one of Dante's minor poems that exists in our language,—and every student of the poet will recognize the success with which very great difficulties have been overcome. It appeared in the Crayon, for February, 1853.]
"Dante took great delight in music, and was an excellent draughtsman," says Aretino, his second biographer; and Boccaccio reports, that in his youth he took great pleasure in music, and was the friend of all the best musicians and singers of his time. There is, perhaps, in the whole range of literature, no nobler homage to Art than that which is contained in the tenth and twelfth cantos of the "Purgatory," in which Dante represents the Creator himself as using its means to impress the lessons of truth upon those whose souls were being purified for the final attainment of heaven. The passages are too long for extract, and though their wonderful beauty tempts us to linger over them, we must return to the course of the story of Dante's life as it appears in the concluding pages of the "New Life."
Many months had passed since Beatrice's death, when Dante happened to be in a place which recalled the past time to him, and filled him with grief. While standing here, he raised his eyes and saw a young and beautiful lady looking out from a window compassionately upon his sad aspect. The tenderness of her look touched his heart and moved his tears. Many times afterwards he saw her, and her face was always full of compassion, and pale, so that it reminded him of the look of his own most noble lady. But at length his eyes began to delight too much in seeing her; wherefore he often cursed their vanity, and esteemed himself as vile, and there was a hard battle within himself between the remembrance of his lady and the new desire of his eyes.
At length, he says, "The sight of this lady brought me into so new a condition, that I often thought of her as of one who pleased me exceedingly,—and I thought of her thus: 'This is a gentle, beautiful, young, and discreet lady, and she has perhaps appeared by will of Love, in order that my life may find repose.' And often I thought more amorously, so that my heart consented in it, that is, approved my reasoning. And after it had thus consented, I, moved as if by reason, reflected, and said to myself, 'Ah, what thought is this that in so vile a way seeks to console me, and leaves me scarcely any other thought?' Then another thought rose up and said, 'Now that thou hast been in so great tribulation of Love, why wilt thou not withdraw thyself from such bitterness? Thou seest that this is an inspiration that sets the desires of Love before thee, and proceeds from a place no less gentle than the eyes of the lady who has shown herself so pitiful toward thee.' Wherefore, I, having often thus combated with myself, wished to say some words of it. And as, in this battle of thoughts, those which spoke for her won the victory, it seemed to me becoming to address her, and I said this sonnet, which begins, 'A gentle thought'; and I called it gentle because I was speaking to a gentle lady,—but otherwise it was most vile.
"A gentle thought that of you holds discourse
Cometh now frequently with me to dwell,
And in so sweet a way of Love doth tell,
My heart to yield unto him he doth force.
"'Who, then, is this,' the soul says to the heart,
'Who cometh to bring comfort to our mind?
And is his virtue of so potent kind,
That other thoughts he maketh to depart?'
"'O saddened soul,' the heart to her replies,
'This is a little spirit fresh from Love,
Whose own desires he before me brings;
"'His very life and all his power doth move
Forth from the sweet compassionating eyes
Of her so grieved by our sufferings.'"