truth of the innocence of Pierre de la Brosse. 30. In Eneid, VI.: "Cease to hope that the decrees of the gods are to be changed by prayers." 37. The apex juris, or top of judg ment; the supreme decree of God. Measure for Measure, II. 2 : "How would you be, If He who is the top of judgment should But judge you as you are?' 51. Virgil's Bucolics, Eclogue I. "And now the high tops of the villages smoke afar, and larger shadows fall from the lofty mountains.' 74. This has generally been supposed to be Sordello the Troubadour. But is it he? Is it Sordello the Troubadour, or Sordello the Podestà of Verona? or are they one and the same person? After much research, it is not easy to decide the question, and to Dante, in his treatise De Volgari Eloquio, I. 15, speaks of Sordello of Mantua as a man so choice in his language, that not only in his poems, but in whatever way he spoke, he abandoned the dialect of his province.' But here there is no question of the Provençal in which Sordello the Troubadour wrote, but only of Italian dialects in comparison with the universal and cultivated Italian, which Dante says "belongs to all the Italian cities, and seems to belong exclusively to none.' In the same treatise, II. 13, he mentions a certain Gotto of Mantua as the author of many good songs; and this Gotto is supposed to be Sordello, as Sordello was born at Goïto in the province of Mantua. But would Dante in the same treatise allude to the same person under different names? Is not this rather the Sordel de Goi, mentioned by Raynouard, Poésies des Troub., V. 445? In the old Provençal manuscript quoted by Raynouard, Poésies des Troub., "Sordello was a Mantuan of Sirier, son of a poor knight, whose name was Sir El Cort. And he delighted in learning songs and in making them, and rivalled the good men of the court as far as possible, and wrote love-songs and satires. And he came to the court of the Count of Saint Boniface, and the Count honoured him greatly, and by way of pastime (a forma de solatz) he fell in love with the wife of the Count, and she with him. And it happened that the Count quarrelled with her brothers, and became estranged from her. And her brothers, Sir Icellis and Sir Albrics, persuaded Sir Sordello to run away with her; and he came to live with them in great content. And afterwards he went into Provence, and received great honour from all good men, and from the Count and Countess, who gave him a good castle and a gentlewoman for his wife.' Citing this passage, Millot, Hist. Litt. des Troub., II. 8o, goes on to say : "This is all that our manuscripts tell us of Sordello. According to Agnelli and Platina, historians of Mantua, he Iwas of the house of the Visconti of that city; valiant in deeds of arms, famous in jousts and tournaments, he won the love of Beatrice, daughter of Ezzelin da Romano, Lord of the Marca Trevigiana, and married her; he governed Mantua as Podestà and CaptainGeneral; and though son-in-law of the tyrant Ezzelin, he always opposed him, being a great lover of justice. "We find these facts cited by Crescimbeni, who says that Sordello was the lord of Goïto; but as they are not applicable to our poet, we presume they refer to a warrior of the same name, and perhaps of a different family. "Among the pieces of Sordello, thirty-four in number, there are some fifteen songs of gallantry, though Nostrodamus says that all his pieces turn only upon philosophic subjects." Nostrodamus's account, as given by Crescimbeni, Volgar Poesia, II. 105, is as follows: - "Sordello was a Mantuan poet, who surpassed in Provençal song, Calvo, Folchetto of Marseilles, Lanfranco Ci cala, Percival Doria, and all the other pleasures of love, concerning whom Genoese and Tuscan poets, who took much is said in the ninth Canto of far greater delight in our Provençal Paradiso. She, being enamoured of tongue, on account of its sweetness, Sordello, had cautiously contrived that than in their own maternal language. This poet was very studious, and exceeding eager to know all things, and as much as any one of his nation excellent in learning as well as in understanding and in prudence. He wrote several beautiful songs, not indeed of love, for not one of that kind is found among his works, but on philosophic subjects. Raymond Belinghieri, the last Count of Provence of that name, in the last days of his life, (the poet being then but fifteen years of age,) on account of the excellence of his poetry and the rare invention shown in his productions, took him into his service, as Pietro di Castelnuovo, himself a Provençal poet, informs us. He also wrote various satires in the same language, and among others one in which he reproves all the Christian princes; and it is composed in the form of a funeral song on the death of Blancasso." In the Hist. Litt. de la France, XIX. 452, Eméric-David, after discussing the subject at length, says : "Who then is this Sordello, haughty and superb, like a lion in repose, this Sordello, who, in embracing Virgil, gives rise to this sudden explosion of the patriotic sentiments of Dante? Is it a singer of love and gallantry? Impossible. This Sordello is the old Podestà of Mantua, as decided a Ghibelline as Dante himself; and Dante atters before him sentiments which he well knows the zealous Ghibelline will share. And what still more confirms our judgment is, that Sordello embraces the knees of Virgil, exclaiming, 'O glory of the Latians,' &c. In this ad. miration, in this love of the Latin tongue, we still see the Podestà, the writer of Latin; we do not see the Troubadour." ཏ་ Benvenuto calls Sordello a "noble and prudent knight," and "a man of singular virtue in the world, though of impenitent life," and tells a story he has heard of him and Cunizza, but does not vouch for it. "Ezzelino," he says, 'had a sister greatly addicted to the he should visit her at night by a back door near the kitchen of her palace at Verona. And as there was in the street a dirty slough in which the swine wallowed, and puddles of filthy water, so that the place would seem in no way suspicious, he caused himself to be carried by her servant to the door where Cunizza stood ready to receive him. Ezzelino having heard of this, one evening, disguised as a servant, carried Sordello, and brought him back. Which done, he discovered himself to Sordello, and said, 'Enough; abstain in future from doing so foul a deed in so foul a place.' Sordello, terrified, humbly besought pardon; promising never more, to return to his sister. But the accursed Cunizza again enticed him into his former error. Wherefore, fearing Ezzelino, the most formidable man of his time, he left the city. But Ezzelino, as some say, afterwards had him put to death." He says, moreover, that Dante places Sordello alone and separate from the others, like Saladin in Inf. IV. 129, on account of his superiority, or because he wrote a book entitled "The Treasure of Treasures"; and that Sordello was a Mantuan of the village of Goïto,"beautiful of person, valiant of spirit, gentle of manner." Finally, Quadrio, Storia d'ogni Poesia, II. 130, easily cuts the knot which no one can untie; but unfortunately he does not give his authorities. He writes : 66 Sordello, native of Goïto, (Sordel de Goi,) a village in the Mantuan territory, was born in 1184, and was the son of a poor knight named Elcort." He then repeats the story of Count Saint Boniface, and of Sordello's reception by Count Raymond in Provence, and adds: "Having afterwards returned to Italy he governed Mantua with the title of Regent and Captain-General; and was opposed to the tyrant Ezzelino, being a great lover of justice, as Agnelli writes. Finally he died, very old and full of honour, about 1280. He wrote not only in Provençal, but also in our own common Italian tongue 02 and he was one of those poets who avoided the dialect of his own province, and used the good, choice language, as Dante affirms in his book of Volgar Eloquenza. If the reader is not already sufficiently confused, he can easily become so by turning to Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital., IV. 360, where he will find the matter thoroughly discussed, in sixteen solid pages, by the patient librarian of Modena, who finally gives up in despair and calls on the Royal Academy for help; "But that were overbold;Who would has heard Sordello's story told." 76. Before Dante's time Fra Guittone had said, in his famous Letter to the Florentines: "O queen of cities, court of justice, school of wisdom, mirror of life, and mould of manners, whose sons were kings, reigning in every land, or were above all others, who art no longer queen but servant, oppressed and subject to tribute! no longer court of justice, but cave of robbers, and school of all folly and madness, mirror of death and mould of felony, whose great strength is stripped and broken, whose beautiful ace is covered with foulness and shame; whose sons are no longer kings but vile and wretched servants, held, wherever they go, in opprobrium and derision by others." See also Petrarca, Canzone XVI., Lady Dacre's Tr., beginning : "O my own Italy! though words are vain The mortal wounds to close, Unnumbered, that thy beauteous bosom stain, Yet may it soothe my pain To sigh for the Tiber's woes, And Arno's wrongs, as on Po's saddened shore Sorrowing I wander and my numbers pour." And Filicaja's sonnet : Italy Italy! thou who'rt doomed to wear That they might fear thee more, or love Who in the splendour of thy loveliness Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat dare! Then from the Alps I should not see descending Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic horde, Drinking the wave of Po, distained with gore, Nor should I see thee girded with a sword Not thine, and with the stranger's arm contending, Victor or vanquished, slave forevermore." 89. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Ch. XLIV., says : "The vain titles of the victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust; but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting monument. Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence was digested in the immortal works of the CODE, the PANDECTS, and the INSTITUTES; the public reason of the Romans has been silently or studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe, and the laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of independent nations. Wise or fortunate is the prince who connects his own reputation with the honour and interest of a perpetual order of men. 92. Luke xii. 17: "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." And in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, 563: "Reddite Casari, quod God, Et quæ sunt Dei Deo, 97. Albert, son of the Emperor Rudolph, was the second of the house of Hapsburg who bore the title of King of the Romans. He was elected in 1298, but never went to Italy to be crowned. He came to an untimely and violent death, by the hand of his nephew John, in 1308. This is the judgment of Heaven to which Dante alludes. His successor was Henry of Luxembourg, Dante's "divine and triumphant Henry," who, in 1311, was crowned at Milan with the Iron Crown of Lombardy, il Sacro Chiodo, as it is sometimes called, from the plate of iron with which the crown is lined, being, according to tradition, made from a nail of the Cross. In 1312, he was again crowned with the Golden Crown at Rome, and died in the following year. "But the end of his career drew on," says Milman, Latin Christ., VI. 520. "He had now advanced, at the head of an army which his enemies dared not meet in the field, towards Siena. He rode still, seemingly in full vigour and activity. But the fatal air of Rome had smitten his strength. A carbuncle had formed under his knee; injudicious remedies inflamed his vitiated blood. He died at Buonconvento, in the midst of his awe-struck army, on the festival of St. Bartholomew. Rumours of foul practice, of course, spread abroad; a Dominican monk was said to have administered poison in the Sacrament, which he received with profound devotion. His body was carried in sad state, and splendidly interred at Pisa. "So closed that empire, in which, if the more factious and vulgar Ghibellines beheld their restoration to their native city, their triumph, their revenge, their sole administration of public affairs, the nobler Ghibellinism of Dante foresaw the establishment of a great universal monarchy necessary to the peace and civilization of mankind. The ideal sovereign of Dante's famous treatise on Monarchy was Henry of Luxembourg. Neither Dante nor his time can be understood but through this treatise. The attempt of the Pope to raise himself to a great pontifical monarchy had manifestly ignominiously failed: the Ghibelline is neither amazed nor distressed at this event. It is now the turn of the Imperialist to unfold his noble vision. 'An universal monarchy is absolutely necessary for the welfare of the world;' and this is part of his singular reasoning: 'Peace,' (says the weary exile, the man worn out in cruel strife, the wanderer from city to city, each of those cities more fiercely torn by faction than the last,) 'universal Peace is the first blessing of mankind. The angels sang, not riches or pleasures, but peace on earth: peace the Lord bequeathed to his disciples. For peace One must rule. Mankind is most like God when at unity, for God is One; therefore under a monarchy. Where there is parity there must be strife; where strife, judgment; the judge must be a third party intervening with supreme authority.' Without monarchy can be no justice, nor even liberty; for Dante's monarch is no arbitrary despot, put a constitutional sovereign; he is the Roman law impersonated in the Emperor; a monarch who should leave all the nations, all the free Italian cities, in possession of their rights and old municipal institutions." 106. The two noble families of Ve rona, the Montagues and Capulets, whose quarrels have been made familiar to the English-speaking world by Romeo and Juliet: "Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, 107. Families of Orvieto. 111. Santafiore is in the neighbourhood of Siena, and much infested with banditti. 112. The state of Rome in Dante's time is thus described by Mr. Norton, Travel and Study, pp. 246-248: "On the slope of the Quirinal Hill, in the quiet enclosure of the convent of St. Catherine of Siena, stands a square, brick tower, seven stories high. It is a conspicuous object in any general view of Rome; for there are few other towers so tall, and there is not a single spire or steeple in the city. It is the Torre delle Milizie. It was begun by Pope Gregory the Ninth, and finished near the end of the thirteenth century by his vigorous and warlike successor, Boniface the Eighth. Many such towers were built for the purposes of private warfare, in those times when the streets of Rome were the fighting-places of its noble families; but this is, perhaps, the only one that now remains undiminished in height and unaltered in appearance. was a new building when Dante visited Rome; and it is one of the very few edifices that still preserve the aspect they then presented. The older ruins have been greatly changed in appearance, and most of the structures of the Middle Ages have disappeared, in the vicissitudes of the last few centuries. Forum was then filled with a confused mass of ruins and miserable dwellings, with no street running through their intricacies. The Capitol was surrounded with uneven battlemented walls, and bore the character and look of an irrą. It The Duomo,-while Pisa was showing her piety and her wealth in her Cathedral, her Camposanto, her Baptistery, and her Tower,-while Siena was beginning a church greater and more magnificent in design than her shifting fortune would permit her to complete,-Rome was building neither cathedral nor campanile, but was selling the marbles of her ancient temples and tombs to the builders of other cities, or quarrying them for her own mean uses. 118. This recalls Pope's Universal Prayer,— "Father of all! in every age, In every clime, adored, 125. Not the great Roman general gular citadel. St. Peter's was a low was building her Cathedral and her basilica; the Colosseum had suffered Campanile, and Orvieto her matchless little from the attacks of Popes or princes, neither the Venetian nor the Farnese palace having as yet been built with stones from its walls; and centuries were still to pass before Michael Angelo, Bernini, and Borromini were to stamp its present character upon the face of the modern city. The siege and burning of Rome by Robert Guiscard, in 1084, may be taken as the dividing-line between the city of the Emperors and the city of the Popes, between ancient and modern Rome. Rome was in a state of too deep depression, its people were too turbulent and unsettled, to have either the spirit or the opportunity for great works. There was no established and recognized authority, no regular course of justice. There was not even any strong force, rarely any overwhelming violence, which for a time at least could subdue opposition, and organize a steady, and consequently a beneficent tyranny. The city was continually distracted by petty personal quarrels, and by bitter family feuds. Its obscure annals are full of bloody civil victories and defeats,— victories which brought no gain to those who won them, defeats which taught no lesson to those who lost them. The breath of liberty never inspired with life the dead clay of Rome; and though for a time it might seem to kindle some vital heat, the glow soon grew cold, and speedily disappeared. The records of Florence, Siena, Bologna, and Perugia are as full of fighting and bloodshed as those of Rome; but their fights were not mere brawls, nor were their triumphs always barren. Even the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which were like the coming of the spring after a long winter, making the earth to blossom, and gladdening the hearts of men,--the centuries which elsewhere in Italy, and over the rest of Europe, gave birth to the noblest medieval Art, when every great city was adorning itself with the beautiful works of the new architecture, sculpture, and painting, even these centuries left scarcely any token of their passage over Rome. The sun, breaking through the clouds that had long hidden it, shone everywhere but here. While Florence 127. Of the state of Florence, Napier writes, Flor. Hist., I. 122: "It was not the simple movement of one great body against another; not the force of a government in opposition to the people; not, the struggle of privilege and democracy, of poverty and riches, or starvation and repletion; but one universal burst of unmitigated anarchy. In the streets, lanes, and squares, in the courts of palaces and humbler dwellings, were heard the clang of arms, the screams of victims, and the gush of blood: the bow of the bridegroom launched its arrows into the very chambers of his young bride's parents and relations, and the bleeding son, the murdered brother, or the dying husband were the evening visitors of Florentine maids and matrons, and aged citizens. Every art was practised to seduce and deceive, and none felt secure even of their nearest and dearest relatives. In the morning a son left his paternal roof |