Chapter 14

Literature.—See bibliography in Bevan,Daniel9, and add Kamphausen,Dan., in Haupt’sSacred Books of the Old Testament; Behrmann,Dan.(1894); J. D. Prince,Dan.(1899); G. A. Barton, “The Compilation of the Book of Daniel,” inJourn. Bibl. Lit.(1898), 62-86, against the unity of the book, &c., &c.; J. D. Davis, “Persian Words and the Date of O.T. Documents,” inOld Testament and Semitic Studies: in Memory of W. R. Harper(Chicago, 1908).

(J. D. Pr.)

Additions to Daniel.—The “additions to Daniel” are three in number:Susannah and the Elders,Bel and the Dragon, andThe Song of the Three Children. Of these the two former have no organic connexion with the text. The case is otherwise with regard to the last. In some respects it helps to fill up a gap in the canonical text between verses 23 and 24 of chapter iii. And yet we find Polychronius, early in the 5th century, stating that this song was not found in the Syriac version.

Susannah.—This addition was placed by Theodotion before chap. i., and Bel and the Dragon at its close, whereas by the Septuagint and the Vulgate it was reckoned as chap. xiii. after the twelve canonical chapters, Bel and the Dragon as xiv. Theodotion’s version is the source of the Peshitto and the Vulgate, for all three additions, and the Septuagint is the source of the Syro-Hexaplaric which has been published by Ceriani (Mon. Sacr.vii.). The legend recounts how that in the early days of the Captivity Susannah, the beautiful and pious wife of the rich Joakim, was walking in her garden and was there seen by two elders who were also judges. Inflamed with lust, they made infamous proposals to her, and when repulsed they brought against her a false charge of adultery. When brought before the tribunal she was condemned to death and was on the way to execution, when Daniel interposed and, by cross-questioning the accusers apart, convinced the people of the falsity of the charge.

The source of the story may, according to Ewald (Gesch.³ iv. 636), have been suggested by the Babylonian legend of the seduction of two old men by the goddess of love (see also Koran,Sur.ii. 96). Another and much more probable origin of the work is that given by Brüll (Das apocr. Susanna-Buch, 1877) and Ball (Speaker’s Apocr.ii. 323-331). The first half of the story is based on a tradition—originating possibly in Jer. xxix. 21-32 and found in the Talmud and Midrash—of two elders Ahab and Zedekiah, who in the Captivity led certain women astray under the delusion that they should thereby become the mother of the Messiah. But the most interesting part of the investigation is concerned with the latter half of the story, which deals with the trial. The characteristics of this section point to its composition about 100-90 B.C., when Simon ben Shetaḥ was president of the Sanhedrin. Its object was to support the attempts of the Pharisees to bring about a reform in the administration of the law courts. According to Sadducean principles the man who was convicted of falsely accusing another of a capital offence was not put to death unless his victim was already executed. The Pharisees held that the intention of the accusers was equivalent to murder. Our apocryph upholds the Pharisaic contention. As Simon ben Shetaḥ insisted on a rigorous examination of the witnesses, so does our writer: as he and his party required that the perjurer should suffer the same penalty he sought to inflict on another, so our writer represents the death penalty as inflicted on the perjured elders.

The language was in all probability Semitic-Hebrew or Aramaic. The paronomasiae in the Greek in verses 54-55 (ὑπὸ σχῖνον ... σχίσει) and 58-59 (ὑπὸ πρῖνον ... πρίσει) present no cogent difficulty against this view; for they may be accidental and have arisen for the first time in the translation. But as Brüll and Ball have shown (seeSpeaker’s Apocr.ii. 324), the same paronomasiae are possible either in Hebrew or Aramaic.

Literature.—Ball in theSpeaker’s Apocr.ii. 233 sqq.; Schürer,Gesch.³ iii. 333; Rothstein in Kautzsch’sApocr. u. Pseud.i. 176 sqq.; Kamphausen inEncy. Bib.; Marshall in Hastings’Bible Dict.; Toy in theJewish Encyc.

Bel and the Dragon.—We have here two independent narratives, in both of which Daniel appears as the destroyer of heathenism. The latter had a much wider circulation than the former, and is most probably a Judaized form of the old Semitic myth of the destruction of the old dragon, which represents primeval chaos (see Ball,Speaker’s Apocr.ii. 346-348; Gunkel,Schöpfung und Chaos, 320-323). Marduk destroys Tiamat in a similar manner to that in which Daniel destroys the dragon (Delitzsch,Das babylonische Weltschöpfung Epos), by driving a storm-wind into the dragon which rends it asunder. Marshall (Hastings’Bib. Dict.i. 267) suggests that the “pitch” of the Greek (Aramaicזיפא) arose from the original term for storm-wind (זעפא).

The Greek exists in two recensions, those of the Septuagint and Theodotion. Most scholars maintain a Greek original, but this is by no means certain. Marshall (Hastings’Bib Dict.i. 268) argues for an Aramaic, and regards Gasters’s Aramaic text [Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology(1894), pp. 280-290, 312-317; (1895) 75-94] as of primary value in this respect, but this is doubtful.

Literature.—Fritzsche’sHandbuch zu den Apoc.; Ball in theSpeaker’s Apocr.ii. 344 sqq.; Schürer,³Gesch.iii. 332 sqq.; and the articles in theEncy. Bibl., Bible Dict., andJewish Encyc.The Greek text is best given in Swete iii., and the Syriac will be found in Walton’sPolyglot, Lagarde and Neubauer’sTobit.

Literature.—Fritzsche’sHandbuch zu den Apoc.; Ball in theSpeaker’s Apocr.ii. 344 sqq.; Schürer,³Gesch.iii. 332 sqq.; and the articles in theEncy. Bibl., Bible Dict., andJewish Encyc.

The Greek text is best given in Swete iii., and the Syriac will be found in Walton’sPolyglot, Lagarde and Neubauer’sTobit.

Song of the Three Children.—This section is composed of the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of Azariah, Ananias and Misael, and was inserted after iii. 23 of the canonical text of Daniel. According to Fritzsche, König, Schürer, &c., it was composed in Greek and added to the Greek translation. On the other hand, Delitzsch, Bissell, Ball, &c., maintain a Hebrew original. The latter view has been recently supported by Rothstein,Apocr. und Pseud.i. 173-176, who holds that these additions were made to the text before its translation into Greek. These additions still preserve, according to Rothstein, a fragment of the original text, i.e. verses 23-28, which came between verses 23 and 24 of chapter iii. of the canonical text. They certainly fill up excellently a manifest gap in this text. “The Song of the Three Children” was first added after the verses just referred to, and subsequently the Prayer of Azariah was inserted before these verses.

Literature.—Ball in theSpeaker’s Apocr.ii. 305 sqq.; Rothstein in Kautzsch’sApocr. und Pseud.i. 173 sqq.; Schürer,³Gesch.iii. 332 sqq.

(R. H. C.)

1Four personages of the name of Daniel appear in the Old Testament: (1) the patriarch of Ezekiel (see above); (2) a son of David (1 Chron. iii. 1); (3) a Levite contemporary with Ezra (Ezra viii. 2; Neh. x. 6); (4) our Daniel.2Ant. x. 10, 1.3Chap, x., on the Prophets.4Panarion,adv.Haeres. 55, 3.5Prince,Dan.p. 26, n. 6.6Dan.p. viii.7The account in chap. ii. of the promotion of Daniel to be governor of Babylon, as a reward for his correct interpretation of Nebuchadrezzar’s dream, is very probably an imitation of the story of Joseph in Gen. xl-xli. The points of resemblance are very striking. In both accounts, we have a young Hebrew raised by the favour of a heathen king to great political prominence, owing to his extraordinary God-given ability to interpret dreams. In both versions, the heathen astrologers make the first attempt to solve the difficulty, which results in failure, whereupon the pious Israelite, being summoned to the royal presence, in both cases through the friendly intervention of a court official, triumphantly explains the mystery to the king’s satisfaction (cf. Prince,Dan.p. 29).8See Bevan,Dan.28-40, on the Hebrew and Aramaic of Daniel.9According to Lagarde,Mitteilungen, iv. 351 (1891); also Gött,Gelehrte Anzeigen(1891), 497-520.10The latest connected Babylonian inscription is that of Antiochus Soter (280-260 B.C.), but the language was probably spoken until Hellenic times; cf. Gutbrod,Zeitschr. für Assyriol.vi. 27.11Prince,Dan.12.12Bertholdt, Dan. 15; Franz Delitzsch, in Herzog,Realencyklopädie, 2nd ed., iii. 470.13Bevan,Dan.27 ff.; Prince,Dan.13.14For this whole discussion, see Prince,Dan.15 ff.15The investigations of Haug, Spiegel and Windischmann show that this was a real Zoroastrian doctrine.16Prince,Dan.35-42.17Certain tablets published by Strassmaier, bearing date continuously from Nabonidus to Cyrus, show that neither Belshazzar nor “Darius the Mede” could have had the title “king of Babylon.” See Driver,Introduction,³ xxii.18Prince,Dan.44-56.19Prince,Dan.19-20, 140, 155, 179 ff.20That “Messiah” or “Anointed One” was used of the High-Priest is seen from Lev. x, 3, v. 16.21Prince,Dan.22-24.

2Ant. x. 10, 1.

3Chap, x., on the Prophets.

4Panarion,adv.Haeres. 55, 3.

5Prince,Dan.p. 26, n. 6.

6Dan.p. viii.

7The account in chap. ii. of the promotion of Daniel to be governor of Babylon, as a reward for his correct interpretation of Nebuchadrezzar’s dream, is very probably an imitation of the story of Joseph in Gen. xl-xli. The points of resemblance are very striking. In both accounts, we have a young Hebrew raised by the favour of a heathen king to great political prominence, owing to his extraordinary God-given ability to interpret dreams. In both versions, the heathen astrologers make the first attempt to solve the difficulty, which results in failure, whereupon the pious Israelite, being summoned to the royal presence, in both cases through the friendly intervention of a court official, triumphantly explains the mystery to the king’s satisfaction (cf. Prince,Dan.p. 29).

8See Bevan,Dan.28-40, on the Hebrew and Aramaic of Daniel.

9According to Lagarde,Mitteilungen, iv. 351 (1891); also Gött,Gelehrte Anzeigen(1891), 497-520.

10The latest connected Babylonian inscription is that of Antiochus Soter (280-260 B.C.), but the language was probably spoken until Hellenic times; cf. Gutbrod,Zeitschr. für Assyriol.vi. 27.

11Prince,Dan.12.

12Bertholdt, Dan. 15; Franz Delitzsch, in Herzog,Realencyklopädie, 2nd ed., iii. 470.

13Bevan,Dan.27 ff.; Prince,Dan.13.

14For this whole discussion, see Prince,Dan.15 ff.

15The investigations of Haug, Spiegel and Windischmann show that this was a real Zoroastrian doctrine.

16Prince,Dan.35-42.

17Certain tablets published by Strassmaier, bearing date continuously from Nabonidus to Cyrus, show that neither Belshazzar nor “Darius the Mede” could have had the title “king of Babylon.” See Driver,Introduction,³ xxii.

18Prince,Dan.44-56.

19Prince,Dan.19-20, 140, 155, 179 ff.

20That “Messiah” or “Anointed One” was used of the High-Priest is seen from Lev. x, 3, v. 16.

21Prince,Dan.22-24.

DANIEL(Danil), of Kiev, the earliest Russian travel-writer, and one of the leading Russian travellers in the middle ages. He journeyed to Syria and other parts of the Levant about 1106-1107. He was theigumen, or abbot, of a monastery probably near Chernigov in Little Russia: some identify him with one Daniel, bishop of Suriev (fl. 1115-1122). He visited Palestine in the reign of Baldwin I., Latin king of Jerusalem (1100-1118), and apparently soon after the crusading capture of Acre (1104); he claims to have accompanied Baldwin, who treated him with marked friendliness, on an expedition against Damascus (c.1107). Though Daniel’s narrative, beginning (as it practically ends) at Constantinople, omits some of the most interesting sections of his journey, his work has considerable value. His picture of the Holy Land preserves a record of conditions (such as the Saracen raiding almost up to the walls of Christian Jerusalem, and the friendly relations subsisting between Roman and Eastern churches in Syria) peculiarly characteristic of the time; his account of Jerusalem itself is remarkably clear, minute and accurate; his three excursions—to the Dead Sea and Lower Jordan (which last he compares to a river of Little Russia, the Snov), to Bethlehem and Hebron, and towards Damascus—gave him an exceptional knowledge of certain regions. In spite of some extraordinary blunders in topography and history, his observant and detailed record, marked by evident good faith, is among the most valuable of medieval documents relating to Palestine: it is also important in the history of the Russian language, and in the study of ritual and liturgy (from its description of the Easter services in Jerusalem, the Descent of the Holy Fire, &c.). Several Russian friends and companions, from Kiev and Old Novgorod, are recorded by Daniel as present with him at the Easter Eve “miracle,” in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

There are seventy-six MSS. of Daniel’s Narrative, of which only five are anterior to A.D. 1500; the oldest is of 1475 (St Petersburg, Library of Ecclesiastical History 9/1086). Three editions exist, of which I. P. Sakharov’s (St Petersburg, 1849) is perhaps the best known (inNarratives of the Russian People, vol. ii. bk. viii. pp. 1-45). See also the French version inItinéraires russes en orient, ed MeB. de Khitrovo (Geneva, 1889) (Société de l’orient latin); and the account of Daniel in C. R. Beazley,Dawn of Modern Geography, ii. 155-174.

(C. R. B.)

DANIEL, GABRIEL(1649-1728), French Jesuit historian, was born at Rouen on the 8th of February 1649. He was educated by the Jesuits, entered the order at the age of eighteen, and became superior at Paris. He is best known by hisHistoire de France depuis l’établissement de la monarchie française(first complete edition, 1713), which was republished in 1720, 1721, 1725, 1742, and (the last edition, with notes by Father Griffet) 1755-1760. Daniel published an abridgment in 1724 (English trans., 1726), and another abridgment was published by Dorival in 1751. Though full of prejudices which affect his accuracy, Daniel had the advantage of consulting valuable original sources. HisHistoire de la milice française, &c. (1721) is superior to hisHistoire de France, and may still be consulted with advantage. Daniel also wrote a by no means successful reply to Pascal’sProvincial Letters, entitledEntretiens de Cléanthe et d’Eudoxe sur les lettres provinciales(1694); two treatises on the Cartesian theory as to the intelligence of the lower animals, and other works.

See Sommervogel,Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, t. ii.

DANIEL, SAMUEL(1562-1619), English poet and historian, was the son of a music-master, and was born near Taunton, in Somersetshire, in 1562. Another son, John Daniel, was a musician, who held some offices at court, and was the author ofSongs for the Lute, Viol and Voice(1606). In 1579 Samuel was admitted a commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he remained for about three years, and then gave himself up to the unrestrained study of poetry and philosophy. The name of Samuel Daniel is given as the servant of Lord Stafford, ambassador in France, in 1586, and probably refers to the poet. He was first encouraged and, if we may believe him, taught in verse, by the famous countess of Pembroke, whose honour he was never weary of proclaiming. He had entered her household as tutor to her son, William Herbert. His first known work, a translation of Paulus Jovius, to which some original matter is appended, was printed in 1585. His first known volume of verse is dated 1592; it contains the cycle of sonnets toDeliaand the romance calledThe Complaint of Rosamond. Twenty-seven of the sonnets had already been printed at the end of Sir Philip Sidney’sAstrophel and Stellawithout the author’s consent. Several editions ofDeliaappeared in 1592, and they were very frequently reprinted during Daniel’s lifetime. We learn by internal evidence that Delia lived on the banks of Shakespeare’s river, the Avon, and that the sonnets to her were inspired by her memory when the poet was in Italy. To an edition ofDeliaandRosamond, in 1594, was added the tragedy ofCleopatra, a severe study in the manner of the ancients, in alternately rhyming heroic verse, diversified by stiff choral interludes.The First Four Books of the Civil Wars, an historical poem inottava rima, appeared in 1595. The bibliography of Daniel’s works is attended with great difficulty, but as far as is known it was not until 1599 that there was published a volume entitledPoetical Essays, which contained, besides the “Civil Wars,” “Musophilus,” and “A letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius,” poems in Daniel’s finest and most mature manner. About this time he became tutor to Anne Clifford, daughter of the countess of Cumberland. On the death of Spenser, in the same year, Daniel received the somewhat vague office of poet-laureate, which he seems, however, to have shortly resigned in favour of Ben Jonson. Whether it was on this occasion is not known, but about this time, and at the recommendation of his brother-in-law, Giovanni Florio, he was taken into favour at court, and wrote aPanegyric Congratulatorie offered to the King at Burleigh Harrington in Rutlandshire, inottava rima. In 1603 this poem was published, and in many cases copies contained in addition hisPoetical Epistlesto his patrons and an elegant prose essay calledA Defence of Rime(originally printed in 1602) in answer to Thomas Campion’sObservations on the Art of English Poesie, in which it was contended that rhyme was unsuited to the genius of the English language. In 1603, moreover, Daniel was appointed master of the queen’s revels. In this capacity he brought out a series of masques and pastoral tragi-comedies,—of which were printedA Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, in 1604;The Queen’s Arcadia, an adaptation of Guarini’sPastor Fido, in 1606;Tethys Festival or the Queenes Wake, written on the occasion of Prince Henry’s becoming a Knight of the Bath, in 1610; andHymen’s Triumph, in honourof Lord Roxburgh’s marriage in 1615. Meanwhile had appeared, in 1605,Certain Small Poems, with the tragedy ofPhilotas; the latter was a study, in the same style asCleopatra, written some five years earlier. This drama brought its author into difficulties, as Philotas, with whom he expressed some sympathy, was taken to represent Essex. In 1607, under the title ofCertaine small Workes heretofore divulged by Samuel Daniel, the poet issued a revised version of all his works exceptDeliaand theCivil Wars. In 1609 the Civil Wars had been completed in eight books. In 1612 Daniel published a proseHistory of England, from the earliest times down to the end of the reign of Edward III. This work afterwards continued, and published in 1617, was very popular with Drayton’s contemporaries. The section dealing with William the Conqueror was published in 1692 as being the work of Sir Walter Raleigh, apparently without sufficient grounds.

Daniel was made a gentleman-extraordinary and groom of the chamber to Queen Anne, sinecure offices which offered no hindrance to an active literary career. He was now acknowledged as one of the first writers of the time. Shakespeare, Selden and Chapman are named among the few intimates who were permitted to intrude upon the seclusion of a garden-house in Old Street, St Luke’s, where, Fuller tells us, he would “lie hid for some months together, the more retiredly to enjoy the company of the Muses, and then would appear in public to converse with his friends.” Late in life Daniel threw up his titular posts at court and retired to a farm called “The Ridge,” which he rented at Beckington, near Devizes in Wiltshire. Here he died on the 14th of October 1619.

The poetical writings of Daniel are very numerous, but in spite of the eulogies of all the best critics, they were long neglected. This is the more singular since, during the 18th century, when so little Elizabethan literature was read, Daniel retained his poetical prestige. In later times Coleridge, Charles Lamb and others expended some of their most genial criticisms on this poet. Of his multifarious works the sonnets are now, perhaps, most read. They depart from the Italian sonnet form in closing with a couplet, as is the case with most of the sonnets of Surrey and Wyat, but they have a grace and tenderness all their own. Of a higher order isThe Complaint of Rosamond, a soliloquy in which the ghost of the murdered woman appears and bewails her fate in stanzas of exquisite pathos. Among theEpistles to Distinguished Personswill be found some of Daniel’s noblest stanzas and most polished verse. The epistle to Lucy, countess of Bedford, is remarkable among those as being composed in genuineterza rima, till then not used in English. Daniel was particularly fond of a four-lined stanza of solemn alternately rhyming iambics, a form of verse distinctly misplaced in his dramas. These, inspired it would seem by like attempts of the countess of Pembroke’s, are hard and frigid; his pastorals are far more pleasing; andHymen’s Triumphis perhaps the best of all his dramatic writing. An extract from this masque is given in Lamb’sDramatic Poets, and it was highly praised by Coleridge. In elegiac verse he always excelled, but most of all in his touching addressTo the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney. We must not neglect to quoteMusophilusamong the most characteristic writings of Daniel. It is a dialogue between a courtier and a man of letters, and is a general defence of learning, and in particular of poetic learning as an instrument in the education of the perfect courtier or man of action. It is addressed to Fulke Greville, and written, with much sententious melody, in a sort ofterza rima, or, more properly,ottava rimawith the couplet omitted. Daniel was a great reformer in verse, and the introducer of several valuable novelties. It may be broadly said of his style that it is full, easy and stately, without being very animated or splendid. It attains a high average of general excellence, and is content with level flights. As a gnomic writer Daniel approaches Chapman, but is far more musical and coherent. He is wanting in fire and passion, but he is preeminent in scholarly grace and tender, mournful reverie.

Daniel’s works were edited by A. B. Grosart in 1885-1896.

(E. G.)

DANIELL, JOHN FREDERIC(1700-1845), English chemist and physicist, was born in London on the 12th of March 1790, and in 1831 became the first professor of chemistry at the newly founded King’s College, London. His name is best known for his invention of the Daniell cell (Phil. Trans., 1836), still extensively used for telegraphic and other purposes. He also invented the dew-point hygrometer known by his name (Quar. Journ. Sci., 1820), and a register pyrometer (Phil. Trans., 1830); and in 1830 he erected in the hall of the Royal Society a water-barometer, with which he carried out a large number of observations(Phil. Trans., 1832). A process devised by him for the manufacture of illuminating gas from turpentine and resin was in use in New York for a time. His publications includeMeteorological Essays(1823), anEssay on Artificial Climate considered in its Applications to Horticulture(1824), which showed the necessity of a humid atmosphere in hothouses devoted to tropical plants, and anIntroduction to the Study of Chemical Philosophy(1839). He died suddenly of apoplexy on the 13th of March 1845, in London, while attending a meeting of the council of the Royal Society, of which he became a fellow in 1813 and foreign secretary in 1839.

DANIELL, THOMAS(1749-1840), English landscape painter, was born at the Chertsey inn, kept by his father, in 1749, and apprenticed to an heraldic painter. Daniell, however, was animated with a love of the romantic and beautiful in architecture and nature. Up to 1784 he painted topographical subjects and flower pieces. By this time his two nephews (see below) had come under his influence, the younger, Samuel, being apprenticed to Medland the landscape engraver, and the elder, William, being under his own care. In this year (1784) he embarked for India accompanied by William, and found at Calcutta ample encouragement. Here he remained ten years, and on returning to London he published his largest work,Oriental Scenery, in six large volumes, not completed till 1808. From 1795 till 1828 he continued to exhibit Eastern subjects, temples, jungle hunts, &c., and at the same time continued the publication of illustrated works. These are—Views of Calcutta;Oriental Scenery, 144 plates;Views in Egypt;Excavations at Ellora;Picturesque Voyage to China. These were for the most part executed in aquatint. He was elected an Academician in 1799, fellow of the Royal Society about the same time, and at different times member of several minor societies. His nephews both died before him; his Indian period had made him independent, and he lived a bachelor life in much respect at Kensington till his death on the 19th of March 1840.

William Daniell(1769-1837), his nephew, was fourteen when he accompanied his uncle to India. His own publications, engraved in aquatint, were—Voyage to India;Zoography;Animated Nature;Views of London;Views of Bootan, a work prepared from his uncle’s sketches; and aVoyage Round Great Britain, which occupied him several years. The British Institution made him an award of £100 for a “Battle of Trafalgar,” and he was elected R.A. in 1822. He turned to panorama painting before his death, beginning in 1832 with Madras, the picture being enlivened by a representation of the Hindu mode of taming wild elephants.

Samuel Daniell, William’s younger brother, was brought up as an engraver, and first appears as an exhibitor in 1792. A few years later he went to the Cape and travelled into the interior of Africa, with his sketching materials in his haversack. The drawings he made there were published, after his return, in hisAfrican Scenery. He did not rest long at home, but left for Ceylon in 1806, where he spent the remaining years of his life, publishingThe Scenery, Animals and Natives of Ceylon.

DANNAT, WILLIAM T.(1853- ), American artist, was born in New York city in 1853. He was a pupil of the Royal Academy of Munich and of Munkacsy, and became an accomplished draughtsman and a distinguished figure and portrait painter. He early attracted attention with sketches and pictures made in Spain, and a large composition, “The Quartette,” now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was one of the successes of the Paris Salon of 1884. Dannat settled in Paris,became an officer of the Legion of Honour, and is represented in the Luxembourg.

DANNECKER, JOHANN HEINRICH VON(1758-1841), German sculptor, was born at Stuttgart, where his father was employed in the stables of the duke of Württemberg, on the 15th of October 1758. The boy was entered in the military school at the age of thirteen, but after two years he was allowed to take his own taste for art. We find him at once associating with the young sculptors Scheffauer and Le Jeune, the painters Guibal and Harper, and also with Schiller, and the musician Zumsteeg. His busts of some of these are good; that of Schiller is well known. In his eighteenth year he carried off the prize at the Concours with his model of Milo of Crotona. On this the duke made him sculptor to the palace (1780), and for some time he was employed on child-angels and caryatides for the decoration of the reception rooms. In 1783 he left for Paris with Scheffauer, and placed himself under Pajou. His Mars, a sitting figure sent home to Stuttgart, marks this period; and we next find him, still travelling with his friend, at Rome in 1785, where he settled down to work hard for five years. Goethe and Herder were then in Rome and became his friends, as well as Canova, who was the hero of the day, and who had undoubtedly a great authoritative influence on his style. His marble statues of Ceres and Bacchus were done at this time. These are now in the Residenz-schloss, at Stuttgart. On his return to Stuttgart, which he never afterwards quitted except for short trips to Paris, Vienna and Zürich, the double influence of his admiration for Canova and his study of the antique is apparent in his works. The first was a girl lamenting her dead bird, which pretty light motive was much admired. Afterwards, Sappho, in marble for the Lustschloss, and two offering-bearers for the Jagdschloss; Hector, now in the museum, not in marble; the complaint of Ceres, from Schiller’s poem; a statue of Christ, worthy of mention for its nobility, which has been skilfully engraved by Amsler; Psyche; kneeling water-nymph; Love, a favourite he had to repeat. These stock subjects with sculptors had freshness of treatment; and the Ariadne, done a little later, especially had a charm of novelty which has made it a European favourite in a reduced size. It was repeated for the banker Von Bethmann in Frankfort, and it now appears the ornament of the Bethmann Museum. Many of the illustrious men of the time were modelled by him. The original marble of Schiller is now at Weimar; after the poet’s death it was again modelled in colossal size. Lavater, Metternich, Countess Stephanie of Baden, General Benkendorf and others are much prized. Dannecker was director of the Gallery of Stuttgart, and received many academic and other distinctions. His death in 1841 was preceded by a period of mental failure.

DANNEWERK,orDanewerk(Danish,DannevirkeorDanevirke, “Danes’ rampart”), the ancient frontier rampart of the Danes against the Germans, extending 10½ m. from just south of the town of Schleswig to the marshes of the river Trene near the village of Hollingstedt. The rampart was begun by Guðoðr (Godefridus), king of Vestfold, early in the 9th century. In 934 it was passed by the German king Henry I., after which it was extended by King Harold Bluetooth (940-986), but was again stormed by the emperor Otto II. in 974. The chronicler Saxo Grammaticus mentions in hisGesta Danorumthe “rampart of Jutland” (Jutiae moenia) as having been once more extended by Valdemar the Great (1157-1182), which has been cited among the proofs that Schleswig (Sønderjylland) forms an integral part of Jutland (Manuel hist. de la question de Slesvig, 1906). After the union of Schleswig and Holstein under the Danish crown, the Danevirke fell into decay, but in 1848 it was hastily strengthened by the Danes, who were, however, unable to hold it in face of the superiority of the Prussian artillery, and on the 23rd of April it was stormed. From 1850 onwards it was again repaired and strengthened at great cost, and was considered impregnable; but in the war of 1864 the Prussians turned it by crossing the Schlei, and it was abandoned by the Danes on the 6th of February without a blow. It was thereupon destroyed by the Prussians; in spite of which, however, a long line of imposing ruins still remains. The systematic excavation of these, begun in 1900, has yielded some notable finds, especially of valuable runic inscriptions (F. de Jessen,La Question de Slesvig, pp. 25, 44-50, &c.).

See Lorenzen,Dannevirke og Omegn(2nd ed., Copenhagen, 1864); H. Handelmann,Das Dannewerk(Kiel, 1885); Philippsen and Sünksen,Führer durch das Danewerk(Hamburg, 1903).

DANSVILLE,a village of Livingston county, New York, U.S.A., 49 m. S. of Rochester, on the Canaseraga Creek. Pop. (1890) 3758; (1900) 3633, of whom 417 were foreign-born; (1905) 3908; (1910) 3938. The village is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the Dansville & Mount Morris railways. At Dansville is the Jackson Health Resort, a large sanatorium, with which a nurses’ training school is connected. There is a public library. The village has large nurseries and vineyards, flour and paper mills, a large printing establishment, a foundry, and a shoe factory. Dansville, named in honour of Daniel P. Faulkner, was settled about 1800, and was incorporated in 1845.

DANTE,Dante (or Durante) Alighieri (1265-1321), the greatest of Italian poets, was born at Florence about the middle of May 1265. He was descended from an ancient family, but from one which at any rate for several generations had belonged to the burgher and not to the knightly class. His biographers have attempted on very slight grounds to deduce his origin from the Frangipani, one of the oldest senatorial families of Rome. We can affirm with greater certainty that he was connected with the Elisei who took part in the building of Florence under Charles the Great. Dante himself does not, with the exception of a few obscure and scattered allusions, carry his ancestry beyond the warrior Cacciaguida, whom he met in the sphere of Mars (Par.xv. 87, foll.). Of Cacciaguida’s family nothing is known. The name, as he told Dante (Par.xv. 139, 5), was given him at his baptism; it has a Teutonic ring. The family may well have sprung from one of the barons who, as Villani tells us, remained behind Otto I. It has been noted that the phrase “Tonde venner quivi” (xvi. 44) seems to imply that they were not Florentines. He further tells his descendant that he was born in the year 1106 (or, if another reading of xvi, 37, 38 be adopted, in 1091), and that he married an Aldighieri from the valley of the Po. Here the German strain appears unmistakably; the name Aldighiero (Aldiger) being purely Teutonic. He also mentions two brothers, Moronte and Eliseo, and that he accompanied the emperor Conrad III. upon his crusade into the Holy Land, where he died (1147) among the infidels. From Eliseo was probably descended the branch of the Elisei; from Aldighiero, son of Cacciaguida, the branch of the Alighieri. Bellincione, son of Aldighiero, was the grandfather of Dante. His father was a second Aldighiero, a lawyer of some reputation. By his first wife, Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffii, this Aldighiero had a son Francesco; by his second, Donna Bella, whose family name is not known, Dante and a daughter. Thus the family of Dante held a most respectable position among the citizens of his beloved city; but had it been reckoned in the very first rank they could not have remained in Florence after the defeat of the Guelphs at Montaperti in 1260. It is clear, however, that Dante’s mother at least did so remain, for Dante was born in Florence in 1265. The heads of the Guelph party did not return till 1267.

Dante was born under the sign of the twins, “the glorious stars pregnant with virtue, to whom he owes his genius such as it is.” Astrologers considered this constellation as favourable to literature and science, and Brunetto Latini, the philosopher and diplomatist, his instructor, tells him in theInferno(xv. 25, foll.) that, if he follows its guidance, he cannot fail to reach the harbour of fame. Boccaccio relates that before his birth his mother dreamed that she lay under a very lofty laurel, growing in a green meadow, by a very clear fountain, when she felt the pangs of childbirth,—that her child, feeding on the berries which fell from the laurel, and on the waters of the fountain, in a very short time became a shepherd, and attempted to reach the leaves of the laurel, the fruit of which had nurtured him,—that, trying to obtain them he fell, and rose up, no longer a man, but in the guise of a peacock. We know little of Dante’s boyhood except that he was a hard student and was profoundly influenced byBrunetto Latini. Boccaccio tells us that he became very familiar with Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Statius, and all other famous poets. From the age of eighteen he, like most cultivated young men of that age, wrote poetry assiduously, in the philosophical amatory style of which his friend, older by many years than himself, Guido Cavalcanti, was a great exponent, and of which Dante regarded Guido Guinicelli of Bologna as the master (Purg.xxvi. 97, 8). Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, writing a hundred years or more after his death, says that “by study of philosophy, of theology, astrology, arithmetic and geometry, by reading of history, by the turning over many curious books, watching and sweating in his studies, he acquired the science which he was to adorn and explain in his verses.” Of Brunetto Latini Dante himself speaks with the most loving gratitude and affection, though he does not hesitate to brand his vices with infamy. Under such guidance Dante became master of all the science of his age at a time when it was not impossible to know all that could be known. He had some knowledge of drawing; at any rate he tells us that on the anniversary of the death of Beatrice he drew an angel on a tablet. He was an intimate friend of Giotto, who has immortalized his youthful lineaments in the chapel of the Bargello, and who is recorded to have drawn from his friend’s inspiration the allegories of Virtue and Vice which fringe the frescoes of the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua. Nor was he less sensible to the delights of music. Milton had not a keener ear for the loud uplifted angel trumpets and the immortal harps of golden wires of the cherubim and seraphim; and the English poet was proud to compare his own friendship with Henry Lawes with that between Dante and Casella, “met in the milder shades of purgatory.” Of his companions the most intimate and sympathetic were the lawyer-poet Cino of Pistoia, Lapo Gianni, Guido Cavalcanti and others, similarly gifted and dowered with like tastes, who moved in the lively and acute society of Florence, and felt with him the first warm flush of the new spirit which was soon to pass over Europe. He has written no sweeter or more melodious lines than those in which he expresses the wish that he, with Guido and Lapo, might be wafted by enchantment over the sea wheresoever they might list, shielded from tempest and foul weather, in such contentment that they should wish to live always in one mind, and that the good enchanter should bring Monna Vanna and Monna Bice and that other lady into their barque, where they should for ever discourse of love and be for ever happy. It is a wonderful thing (says Leonardo Bruni) that, though he studied without intermission, it would not have appeared to anyone that he studied, from his joyous mien and youthful conversation. Like Milton he was trained in the strictest academical education which the age afforded; but Dante lived under a warmer sun and brighter skies, and found in the rich variety and gaiety of his early life a defence against the withering misfortunes of his later years. Milton felt too early the chill breath of Puritanism, and the serious musing on the experience of life, which saddened the verse of both poets, deepened in his case rather into grave and desponding melancholy, than into the fierce scorn and invective which disillusion wrung from Dante.

We must now consider the political circumstances in which lay the activity of Dante’s manhood. From 1115, the year of the death of Matilda countess of Tuscany, to 1215, Florence enjoyed a nearly uninterrupted peace.Political life.Attached to the Guelph party, it remained undivided against itself. But in 1215 a private feud between the families of Buondelmonte and Uberti introduced into the city the horrors of civil war. Villani (lib. v. cap. 38) relates how Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti, a noble youth of Florence, being engaged to marry a lady of the house of Amidei, allied himself instead to a Donati, and how Buondelmonte was attacked and killed by the Amidei and Uberti at the foot of the Ponte Vecchio, close by the pilaster which bears the image of Mars. “The death of Messer Buondelmonte was the occasion and beginning of the accursed parties of Guelphs and Ghibellines in Florence.” Of the seventy-two families then in Florence thirty-nine became Guelph under the leadership of the Buondelmonte and the rest Ghibelline under the Uberti. The strife of parties was for a while allayed by the war against Pisa in 1222, and the constant struggles against Siena; but in 1248 Frederick II. sent into the city his natural son Frederick “of Antioch,” with 1600 German knights. The Guelphs were driven away from the town, and took refuge, part in Montevarchi, part in Capraia. The Ghibellines, masters of Florence, behaved with great severity, and destroyed the towers and palaces of the Guelph nobles. At last the people became impatient. They rose in rebellion, reduced the powers of the podestà, elected a captain of the people to manage the internal affairs of the city, with a council of twelve, established a more democratic constitution, and, encouraged by the death of Frederick II. in December 1250, recalled the exiled Guelphs. Manfred, the bastard son of Frederick, pursued the policy of his father. He stimulated the Ghibelline Uberti to rebel against their position of subjection. A rising of the vanquished party was put down by the people, in July 1258 the Ghibellines were expelled from the town, and the towers of the Uberti razed to the ground. The exiles betook themselves to the friendly city of Siena. Manfred sent them a reinforcement of German horse, under his kinsman Count Giordano Lancia. The Florentines, after vainly demanding their surrender, despatched an army against them. On the 4th of September 1260 was fought the great battle of Montaperti, which dyed the Arbia red, and in which the Guelphs were entirely defeated. The hand which held the banner of the republic was sundered by the sword of a traitor (Inf.xxxii. 106). For the first time in the history of Florence the Carroccio was taken. Florence lay at the mercy of her enemies. A parliament was held at Empoli, in which the deputies of Siena, Pisa, Arezzo and other Tuscan towns consulted on the best means of securing their new war power. They voted that the accursed Guelph city should be blotted out. But Farinata degli Uberti stood up in their midst, bold and defiant as when he stood erect among the sepulchres of hell, and said that if, from the whole number of the Florentines, he alone should remain, he would not suffer, whilst he could wield a sword, that his country should be destroyed, and that, if it were necessary to die a thousand times for her, a thousand times would he be ready to encounter death. Help came to the Guelphs from an unexpected quarter. Clement IV., elected pope in 1265, offered the crown of Apulia and Sicily to Charles of Anjou. The French prince, passing rapidly through Lombardy, Romagna and the Marches, reached Rome by way of Spoleto, was crowned on the 6th of January 1266, and on the 23rd of February defeated and killed Manfred at Benevento. In such a storm of conflict did Dante first see the light. In 1267 the Guelphs were recalled, but instead of settling down in peace with their opponents they summoned Charles of Anjou to vengeance, and the Ghibellines were driven out. The meteor passage of Conradin gave hope to the imperial party, which was quenched when the head of the fair-haired boy fell on the scaffold at Naples. Pope after pope tried in vain to make peace. Gregory X. placed the rebellious city under an interdict; in 1278 Cardinal Latini by order of Nicholas III. effected a truce, which lasted for four years. The city was to be governed by a committee of fourteenbuonomini, on which the Guelphs were to have a small majority. In 1282 the constitution of Florence received the final form which it retained till the collapse of freedom. From the three artimaggioriwere chosen six priors, in whose hands was placed the government of the republic. Before the end of the century, seven greater arts were recognized, including thespeziali,—druggists and dealers in all manner of oriental goods, and in books—among whom Dante afterwards enrolled himself. They remained in office for two months, and during that time lived and shared a common table in the public palace. We shall see what influence this office had upon the fate of Dante. The success of the “Sicilian Vespers” (March 1282), the death of Charles of Anjou (January 1285), and of Martin IV. in the following March, roused again the courage of the Ghibellines. They entered Arezzo, where the Ghibellines at present had the upper hand, and threatened to drive out the Guelphs from Tuscany. Skirmishes and raids, of which Villani and Bruni have left accounts, went on through the winter of 1288-1289, forming a prelude to the greatbattle of Campaldino in the following summer. Then it was that Dante saw “horsemen moving camp and commencing the assault, and holding muster, and the march of foragers, the shock of tournaments, and race of jousts, now with trumpets and now with bells, with drums and castle signals, with native things and foreign” (Inf.xxii. 1, foll.). On the 11th of June 1289, at Campaldino near Poppi, in the Casentino, the Ghibellines were utterly defeated. They never again recovered their hold on Florence, but the violence of faction survived under other names. In a letter quoted, though not at first hand, by Leonardo Bruni, which is not now extant, Dante is said to mention that he himself fought with distinction at Campaldino. He was present shortly afterwards at the battle of Caprona (Inf.xxi. 95, foll.), and returned in September 1289 to his studies and his love. His peace was of short duration. On the 9th of June 1290 died Beatrice, whose mortal love had guided him for thirteen years, and whose immortal spirit purified his later life, and revealed to him the mysteries of Paradise.

Dante had first met Beatrice Portinari at the house of her father Folco on May-day 1274. In his own words, “already nine times after my birth the heaven of light had returned as it were to the same point, when there appeared to my eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was by many called Beatrice who knew not what to call her. She had already been so long in this life that already in its time the starry heaven had moved towards the east the twelfth part of a degree, so that she appeared to me about the beginning of her ninth year, and I saw her about the end of my ninth year. Her dress on that day was of a most noble colour, a subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited with her tender age. At that moment I saw most truly that the spirit of life which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and intremblingit said these words, ‘Ecce deus fortior me qui veniens dominabitur mihi.’” In theVita Nuovais written the story of his passion from its commencement to within a year after the lady’s death (June 9th, 1290). He saw Beatrice only once or twice, and she probably knew little of him. She married Simone de’ Bardi. But the worship of her lover was stronger for the remoteness of its subject. The last chapter of the Vita Nuova relates how, after the lapse of a year, “it was given me to behold a wonderful vision, wherein I saw things which determined me to say nothing further of this blessed one until such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning her. And to this end I labour all I can, as she in truth knoweth. Therefore if it be His pleasure through whom is the life of all things that my life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I shall yet write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. After the which may it seem good unto Him who is the master of grace that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady, to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who now gloriously gazes on the countenance of Him qui est per omnia saecula benedictus.” In theConvitohe resumes the story of his life. “When I had lost the first delight of my soul (that is, Beatrice) I remained so pierced with sadness that no comforts availed me anything, yet after some time my mind, desirous of health, sought to return to the method by which other disconsolate ones had found consolation, and I set myself to read that little-known book of Boetius in which he consoled himself when a prisoner and an exile. And hearing that Tully had written another work, in which, treating of friendship, he had given words of consolation to Laelius, I set myself to read that also.” He so far recovered from the shock of his loss that in 1292 he married Gemma, daughter of Manetto Donati, a connexion of the celebrated Corso Donati, afterwards Dante’s bitter foe. It is possible that she is the lady mentioned in theVita Nuovaas sitting full of pity at her window and comforting Dante for his sorrow. By this wife he had two sons and two daughters, and although he never mentions her in theDivina Commedia, and although she did not accompany him into exile, there is no reason to suppose that she was other than a good wife, or that the union was otherwise than happy. Certain it is that he spares the memory of Corso in his great poem, and speaks kindly of his kinsmen Piccarda and Forese.

In 1293 Giano della Bella, a man of old family who had thrown in his lot with the people, induced the commonwealth to adopt the so-called “Ordinances of Justice,” a severely democratic constitution, by which among other things it was enacted that no man of noble family, even though engaged in trade, could hold office as prior. Two years later Giano was banished, but the ordinances remained in force, though thegrandirecovered much of their power.

Dante now began to take an active part in politics. He was inscribed in thearteof theMediciandSpeziali, which made him eligible as one of the sixpriorito whom the government of the city was entrusted in 1282. Documents still existing in the archives of Florence show that he took part in the deliberations of the several councils of the city in 1295, 1296, 1300 and 1301. The notice in the last year is of some importance. The pope had demanded a contingent of 100 Florentine knights to serve against his enemies, the Colonna family. On the 19th of June we read in the contemporary report of the debate on this question in the Council of a Hundred: “Dantes Alagherius consuluit quod de servitio faciendo Domino Papae nihil fieret.” Other instances of his invariable opposition to Boniface occur. Filelfo says that he served on fourteen embassies, a statement not only unsupported by evidence, but impossible in itself. Filelfo does not mention the only embassy in which we know for certain that Dante was engaged, that to the town of San Gemignano in May 1300. From the 15th of June to the 15th of August 1300 he held the office of prior, which was the source of all the miseries of his life. The spirit of faction had again broken out in Florence. The two rival families were the Cerchi and the Donati,—the first of great wealth but recent origin, the last of ancient ancestry but poor. A quarrel had arisen in Pistoia between the two branches of the Cancellieri,—the Bianchi and Neri, the Whites and the Blacks. The quarrel spread to Florence, the Donati took the side of the Blacks, the Cerchi of the Whites. Pope Boniface was asked to mediate, and sent Cardinal Matteo d’Acquasparta to maintain peace. He arrived just as Dante entered upon his office as prior. The cardinal effected nothing, but Dante and his colleagues banished the heads of the rival parties in different directions to a distance from the capital. The Blacks were sent to Città della Pieve in the Tuscan mountains; the Whites, among whom was Dante’s dearest friend Guido Cavalcanti, to Serrezzano in the unhealthy Maremma. After the expiration of Dante’s office both parties returned, Guido Cavalcanti so ill with fever that he shortly afterwards died. At a meeting held in the church of the Holy Trinity the Whites were denounced as Ghibellines, enemies of the pope. The Blacks sought for vengeance. Their leader, Corso Donati, hastened to Rome, and persuaded Boniface VIII. to send for Charles of Valois, brother of the French king, Philip the Fair, to act as “peacemaker.” The priors sent at the end of September four ambassadors to the pope, one of whom, according to the chronicler Dino, was Dante. There are, however, improbabilities in the story, and the passage quoted in support of it bears marks of later interpolation. He never again saw the towers of his native city. Charles of Valois, after visiting the pope at Anagni, retraced his steps to Florence, entering the city on All Saints’ Day and taking up his abode in the Oltr’ Arno. Corso Donati, who had been banished a second time, returned in force and summoned the Blacks to arms. The prisons were broken open, the podestà driven from the town, the Cerchi confined within their houses, a third of the city was destroyed with fire and sword. By the help of Charles the Blacks were victorious. They appointed Cante de’ Gabrielli of Gubbio as podestà, a man devoted to their interests. More than 600 Whites were condemned to exile and cast as beggars upon the world. On the 27th of January 1302, Dante, with four others of the White party, was charged before the podestà, Cante de’ Gabrielli, withbaratteria, or corrupt jobbery and peculation when in office, and, not appearing, condemned to pay a fine of 5000 lire of small florins. If the money was not paid within three days their property was to be destroyed and laid waste; if they did pay the fine they were to be exiled for two years from Tuscany; in any case they were never again to hold office in therepublic. The charge in Dante’s case was obviously preposterous, though ingeniously devised; for he was known to be at the time in somewhat straitened circumstances, and had recently been in control of certain public works. But of all sins, that of “barratry” was one of the most hateful to him. No doubt the papal finger may be traced in the affair. On the 10th of March Dante and fourteen others were condemned to be burned alive if they should come into the power of the republic. Similar sentences were passed in September 1311 and October 1315. The sentence was not formally reversed till 1494, under the government of the Medici.

Leonardo Bruni, who accepts the story of the embassy to Rome, states that Dante received the news of his banishment in that city, and at once joined the other exiles at Siena. How he escaped arrest in the papal states is not explained. The exiles met first at Gargonza, a castle between Siena and Arezzo, and then at Arezzo itself. They joined themselves to the Ghibellines, to which party the podestà Uguccione della Faggiuola belonged. The Ghibellines, however, were divided amongst themselves, and the more strict Ghibellines were not disposed to favour the cause of the White Guelphs. On the 8th of June 1302, however, a meeting was held at San Godenzo, a place in the Florentine territory, Dante’s presence at which is proved by documentary evidence, and an alliance was there made with the powerful Ghibelline clan of the Ubaldini. The exiles remained at Arezzo till the summer of 1304. In September 1303 the fleur-de-lis had entered Anagni, and Christ had a second time been made prisoner in the person of his vicar. At the instigation of Philip the Fair, William of Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna had entered the papal palace at Anagni, and had insulted and, it is said, even beaten the aged pontiff under his own roof. Boniface did not survive the insult long, but died in the following month. He was succeeded by Benedict XI., and in March the cardinal da Prato came to Florence, sent by the new pope to make peace. The people received him with enthusiasm; ambassadors came to him from the Whites; and he did his best to reconcile the two parties. But the Blacks resisted all his efforts. He shook the dust from off his feet, and departed, leaving the city under an interdict. Foiled by the calumnies and machinations of the one party, the cardinal gave his countenance to the other. It happened that Corso Donati and the heads of the Black party were absent at Pistoia. Da Prato advised the Whites to attack Florence, deprived of its heads and impaired by a recent fire. An army was collected of 16,000 foot and 9000 horse. Communications were opened with the Ghibellines of Bologna and Romagna, and a futile attempt was made to enter Florence from Lastra, the failure of which further disorganized the party. Dante had, however, already separated from the “ill-conditioned and foolish company” of common party-politicians, who rejected his counsels of wisdom, and had learnt that he must henceforth form a party by himself. In 1303 he had left Arezzo and gone to Forli in Romagna, of which city Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi was lord. To him, according to Flavius Blondus the historian (d. before 1484), a native of the place, Dante acted for a time as secretary.

From Forli Dante probably went to Bartolommeo della Scala, lord of Verona, where the country of the great Lombard gave him his first refuge and his first hospitable reception. Can Grande, to whom he afterwards dedicated theParadiso,Dante’s Ghibellinism.was then a boy. Bartolommeo died in 1304, and it is possible that Dante may have remained in Verona till his death. We must consider, if we would understand the real nature of Dante’s Ghibellinism, that he had been born and bred a Guelph; but he saw that the conditions of the time were altered, and that other dangers menaced the welfare of his country. There was no fear now that Florence, Siena, Pisa, Arezzo should be razed to the ground in order that the castle of the lord might overlook the humble cottages of his contented subjects; but there was danger lest Italy should be torn in sunder by its own jealousies and passions, and lest the fair domain bounded by the sea and the Alps should never properly assert the force of its individuality, and should present a contemptible contrast to a united France and a confederated Germany. Sick with petty quarrels and dissensions, Dante strained his eyes towards the hills for the appearance of a universal monarch, raised above the jars of faction and the spur of ambition, under whom each country, each city, each man, might, under the institutions best suited to it, lead the life and do the work for which it was best fitted. United in spiritual harmony with the vicar of Christ, he should show for the first time to the world an example of a government where the strongest force and the highest wisdom were interpenetrated by all that God had given to the world of piety and justice. In this sense and in no other was Dante a Ghibelline. The vision was never realized—the hope was never fulfilled. Not till 500 years later did Italy become united and the “greyhound of deliverance” chase from city to city the wolf of cupidity. But is it possible to say that the dream did not work its own realization, or to deny that the high ideal of the poet, after inspiring a few minds as lofty as his own, has become embodied in the constitution of a state which acknowledges no stronger bond of union than a common worship of the exile’s indignant and impassioned verse?

It is very difficult to determine with exactness the order and the place of Dante’s wanderings. Many cities and castles in Italy have claimed the honour of giving him shelter, or of being for a time the home of his inspired muse. HeWanderings.certainly spent some time with Count Guido Salvatico in the Casentino near the sources of the Arno, probably in the castle of Porciano, and with Uguccione in the castle of Faggiuola in the mountains of Urbino. After this he is said to have visited the university of Bologna; and in August 1306 we find him at Padua. Cardinal Napoleon Orsini, the legate of the French pope Clement V., had put Bologna under a ban, dissolved the university and driven the professors to the northern city. In May or June 1307 the same cardinal collected the Whites at Arezzo and tried to induce the Florentines to recall them. The name of Dante is found attached to a document signed by the Whites in the church of St Gaudenzio in the Mugello. This enterprise came to nothing. Dante retired to the castle of Moroello Malespina in the Lunigiana, where the marble ridges of the mountains of Carrara descend in precipitous slopes to the Gulf of Spezzia. From this time till the arrival of the emperor Henry VII. in Italy, October 1310, all is uncertain. His old enemy Corso Donati had at last allied himself with Uguccione della Faggiuola, the leader of the Ghibellines. Dante thought it possible that this might lead to his return. But in 1308 Corso was declared a traitor, attacked in his house, put to flight and killed. Dante lost his last hope. He left Tuscany, and went to Can Grande della Scala at Verona. From this place it is thought that he visited the university of Paris (1309), studied in the rue du Fouarre and went on into the Low Countries. That he ever crossed the Channel or went to Oxford, or himself saw where the heart of Henry, son of Richard, earl of Cornwall, murdered by his cousin Guy of Montfort in 1271, was “still venerated on the Thames,” may safely be disbelieved. The only evidence for it is in theCommentaryof John of Serravalle, bishop of Fermo, who lived a century later, had no special opportunity of knowing, and was writing for the benefit of two English bishops. The election in 1308 of Henry of Luxemburg as emperor stirred again his hopes of a deliverer. At the end of 1310, in a letter to the princes and people of Italy, he proclaimed the coming of the saviour; at Milan he did personal homage to his sovereign. The Florentines made every preparation to resist the emperor. Dante wrote from the Casentino a letter dated the 31st of March 1311, in which he rebuked them for their stubbornness and obstinacy. Henry still lingered in Lombardy at the siege of Cremona, when Dante, on the 16th of April 1311, in a celebrated epistle, upbraided his delay, argued that the crown of Italy was to be won on the Arno rather than on the Po, and urged the tarrying emperor to hew the rebellious Florentines like Agag in pieces before the Lord. Henry was as deaf to this exhortation as the Florentines themselves. After reducing Lombardy he passed from Genoa to Pisa, and on the 29th of June 1312 was crowned by some cardinals in the church of St John Lateran at Rome; the Vatican being in the hands of his adversary King Robert of Naples. Then at length he moved towardsTuscany by way of Umbria. Leaving Cortona and Arezzo, he reached Florence on the 19th of September. He did not dare to attack it, but returned in November to Pisa. In the summer of the following year he prepared to invade the kingdom of Naples; but in the neighbourhood of Siena he caught a fever and died at the monastery of Buonconvento, on the 24th of August 1313. He lies in the Campo Santo of Pisa; and the hopes of Dante and his party were buried in his grave.

After the death of the emperor Henry (Bruni tells us) Dante passed the rest of his life as an exile, sojourning in various places throughout Lombardy, Tuscany and the Romagna, under the protection of various lords, until at lengthOld age and death.he retired to Ravenna, where he ended his life. Very little can be added to this meagre story. There is reason for supposing that he stayed at Gubbio with Bosone dei Rafaelli, and tradition assigns him a cell in the monastery of Sta Croce di Fonte Avellana in the same district, situated on the slopes of Catria, one of the highest peaks of the Apennines in that region. After the death of the French pope, Clement V., he addressed a letter, dated the 14th of July 1314, to the cardinals in conclave, urging them to elect an Italian pope. About this time he came to Lucca, then lately conquered by his friend Uguccione. Here he completed the last cantos of thePurgatory, which he dedicated to Uguccione, and here he must have become acquainted with Gentucca, whose name had been whispered to him by her countryman on the slopes of the Mountain of Purification (Purg.xxiv. 37). That the intimacy between the “world-worn” poet and the young married lady (who is thought to be identifiable with Gentucca Morla, wife of one Cosciorino Fondora) was other than blameless, is quite incredible. In August 1315 was fought the battle of Monte Catini, a day of humiliation and mourning for the Guelphs. Uguccione made but little use of his victory; and the Florentines marked their vengeance on his adviser by condemning Dante yet once again to death if he ever should come into their power. In the beginning of the following year Uguccione lost both his cities of Pisa and Lucca. At this time Dante was offered an opportunity of returning to Florence. The conditions given to the exiles were that they should pay a fine and walk in the dress of humiliation to the church of St John, and there do penance for their offences. Dante refused to tolerate this shame; and the letter is still extant in which he declines to enter Florence except with honour, secure that the means of life will not fail him, and that in any corner of the world he will be able to gaze at the sun and the stars, and meditate on the sweetest truths of philosophy. He preferred to take refuge with his most illustrious protector Can Grande della Scala of Verona, then a young man of twenty-five, rich, liberal and the favoured head of the Ghibelline party. His name has been immortalized by an eloquent panegyric in the seventeenth canto of theParadiso. Whilst on a visit at the court of Verona he maintained, on the 20th of January 1320, the philosophical thesisDe aqua et terra, on the levels of land and water, which is included in his minor works. The last three years of his life were spent at Ravenna, under the protection of Guido da Polenta. In his service Dante undertook an embassy to the Venetians. He failed in the object of his mission, and, returning disheartened and broken in spirit through the unhealthy lagoons, caught a fever and died in Ravenna on the 14th of September 1321. His bones still repose there. His doom of exile has been reversed by the union of Italy, which has made the city of his birth and the various cities of his wanderings component members of a common country. His son Piero, who wrote a commentary on theDivina Commedia, settled as a lawyer in Verona, and died in 1364. His daughter Beatrice lived as a nun in Ravenna, dying at some time between 1350 (when Boccaccio brought her a present of ten gold crowns from a Florentine gild) and 1370. His direct line became extinct in 1509.

Dante’s Works.—Of Dante’s works, that by which he is known to all the educated world, and in virtue of which he holds his place as one of the half-dozen greatest writers of all time, is of course theCommedia. (The epithetdivina,Divina Commedia.it may be noted, was not given to the poem by its author, nor does it appear on a title-page until 1555, in the edition of Ludovico Dolce, printed by Giolito; though it is applied to the poet himself as early as 1512.) The poem is absolutely unique in literature; it may safely be said that at no other epoch of the world’s history could such a work have been produced. Dante was steeped in all the learning, which in its way was considerable, of his time; he had read theSumma Theologicaof Aquinas, theTrésorof his master Brunetto, and other encyclopaedic works available in that age; he was familiar with all that was then known of the Latin classical and post-classical authors. Further, he was a deep and original political thinker, who had himself borne a prominent part in practical politics. He was born into a generation in which almost every man of education habitually wrote verse, as indeed their predecessors had been doing for the last fifty years. Vernacular poetry had come late into Italy, and had hitherto, save for a few didactic or devotional treatises hitched into rough rhyme, been exclusively lyric in form. Amatory at first, later, chiefly in the hands of Guittone of Arezzo and Guido Cavalcanti, taking an ethical and metaphysical tone, it had never fully shaken off the Provençal influence under which it had started, and of which Dante himself shows considerable traces.

The age also was unique, though the two great events which made the 15th century a turning-point in the world’s history—the invention of printing and the discovery of the new world (to which might perhaps be added the intrusion of Islam into Europe)—were still far in the future. But the age was essentially one of great men; of free thought and free speech; of brilliant and daring action, whether for good or evil. It is easy to understand how Dante’s bitterest scorn is reserved for those “sorry souls who lived without infamy and without renown, displeasing to God and to His enemies.”

The time was thus propitious for the production of a great imaginative work, and the man was ready who should produce it. It called for a prophet, and the prophet said, “Here am I.” “Dante,” says an acute writer, “is not, as Homer is, the father of poetry springing in the freshness and simplicity of childhood out of the arms of mother earth; he is rather, like Noah, the father of a second poetical world, to whom he pours forth his prophetic song fraught with the wisdom and the experience of the old world.” Thus theCommedia, though often classed for want of a better description among epic poems, is totally different in method and construction from all other poems of that kind. Its “hero” is the narrator himself; the incidents do not modify the course of the story; the place of episodes is taken by theological or metaphysical disquisitions; the world through which the poet takes his readers is peopled, not with characters of heroic story, but with men and women known personally or by repute to him and those for whom he wrote. Its aim is not to delight, but to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort; to form men’s characters by teaching them what courses of life will meet with reward, what with penalty, hereafter; “to put into verse,” as the poet says, “things difficult to think.” For such new matter a new vehicle was needed. We have Bembo’s authority for believing that theterza rima, surpassed, if at all, only by the ancient hexameter, as a measure equally adaptable to sustained narrative, to debate, to fierce invective, to clear-cut picture and to trenchant epigram, was first employed by Dante.

The action of theCommediaopens in the early morning of the Thursday before Easter, in the year 1300. The poet finds himself lost in a forest, escaping from which he has his way barred by a wolf, a lion and a leopard. All this, like the rest of the poem, is highly symbolical. This branch of the subject is too vast to be entered on at any length here; but so far as this passage is concerned it may be said that it seems to indicate that at this period of his life, about the age of thirty-five, Dante went through some experience akin to what is now called “conversion.” Having led up till then the ordinary life of a cultivated Florentine of good family; taking his part in public affairs, military and civil, as an hereditary member of the predominant Guelph party; dallying in prose which with all its beauty and passion is full of the conceits familiar to the 13th century, and in verse which save for the excellence of its execution differs in no way from that of hispredecessors, with the memory of his lost love; studying more seriously, perhaps, than most of his associates; possibly travelling a little,—gradually or suddenly he became convinced that all was not well with him, and that not by leading, however blamelessly, the “active” life could he save his soul. The strong vein of mysticism, found in so many of the deepest thinkers of that age, and conspicuous in Dante’s mind, no doubt played its part. His efforts to free himself from the “forest” of worldly cares were impeded by the temptations of the world—cupidity (including ambition), the pride of life and the lusts of the flesh, symbolized by the three beasts. But a helper is at hand. Virgil appears and explains that he has a commission from three ladies on high to guide him. The ladies are the Blessed Virgin, St Lucy (whom for some reason never yet explained Dante seems to have regarded as in a special sense his protector) and Beatrice. In Virgil we are apparently intended to see the symbol of what Dante calls philosophy, what we should rather call natural religion; Beatrice standing for theology, or rather revealed religion. Under Virgil’s escort Dante is led through the two lower realms of the next world, Hell and Purgatory; meeting on the way with many persons illustrious or notorious in recent or remoter times, as well as many well enough known then in Tuscany and the neighbouring states; but who, without the immortality, often unenviable, that the poet has conferred on them, would long ago have been forgotten. Popes, kings, emperors, poets and warriors, Florentine citizens of all degrees, are there found; some doomed to hopeless punishment, others expiating their offences in milder torments, and looking forward to deliverance in due time. It is remarkable to notice how rarely, if ever, Dante allows political sympathy or antagonism to influence him in his distribution of judgment. Hell is conceived as a vast conical hollow, reaching to the centre of the earth. It has three great divisions, corresponding to Aristotle’s three classes of vices, incontinence, brutishness and malice. The first are outside the walls of the city of Dis; the second, among whom are included unbelievers, tyrants, suicides, unnatural offenders, usurers, are within; the first apparently on the same level as those without, the rest separated from them by a steep descent of broken rocks. (It should be said that many Dante scholars hold that Aristotle’s “brutishness” has no place in Dante’s scheme; but the symmetry of the arrangement, the special reference made to that division, and certain expressions used elsewhere by Dante, seem to make it probable that he would here, as in most other cases, have followed his master in philosophy.) The sinners by malice, which includes all forms of fraud or treachery, are divided from the last by a yet more formidable barrier. They lie at the bottom of a pit, the depth of which is not stated, with vertical sides, and accessible only by supernatural means; a monster named Geryon bearing the poets down on his back. The torments here are of a more terrible, often of a loathsome character. Ignominy is added to pain, and the nature of Dante’s demeanour towards the sinners changes from pity to hatred. At the very bottom of the pit is Lucifer, immovably fixed in ice; climbing down his limbs they reach the centre of the earth, whence a cranny conducts them back to the surface, at the foot of the purgatorial mountain, which they reach as Easter Day is dawning. Before the actual Purgatory is attained they have to climb for the latter half of the day and rest at night. The occupants of this outer region are those who have delayed repentance till death was upon them. They include many of the most famous men of the last thirty years. In the morning the gate is opened, and Purgatory proper is entered. This is divided into seven terraces, corresponding to the seven deadly sins, which encircle the mountain and have to be reached by a series of steep climbs, compared by Dante in one instance to the path from Florence to Samminiato. The penalties are not degrading, but rather tests of patience or endurance; and in several cases Dante has to bear a share in them as he passes. On the summit is the Earthly Paradise. Here Beatrice appears, in a mystical pageant; Virgil departs, leaving Dante in her charge. By her he is led through the various spheres of which, according to both the astronomy and the theology of the time, Heaven is composed, to the supreme Heaven, or Empyrean, the seat of the Godhead. For one moment there is granted him the intuitive vision of the Deity, and the comprehension of all mysteries, which is the ultimate goal of mystical theology; his will is wholly blended with that of God, and the poem ends.

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