Heroes of Modern Europe | Page 7

strangely
peaceful in his childhood because the Guelfs were her unquestioned
masters at the time. It must have {23} been a relief to Florentines to go
forth to external warfare!
Dante played his part valiantly on the battle-field, then returned to
wonderful aloofness from the strife of factions. He was stricken with
grave fears that Beatrice must die, and mourned sublimely when the
sad event took place on the ninth day of one of the summer months of
1290. "In their ninth year they had met, nine years after, they had
spoken; she died on the ninth day of the month and the ninetieth year of
the century."
Real life began with the poet's marriage when he was twenty-eight, for
he allied himself to the noble Donati by marrying Gemma of that house.
Little is known of the wife, but she bore seven children and seems to
have been devoted. Dante still had his spiritual love for Beatrice in his
heart, and planned a wonderful poem in which she should be celebrated
worthily.
Dante began to take up the active duties of a citizen in 1293 when the
people of Florence rose against the nobles and took all their political
powers from them. The aristocratic party had henceforth to submit to
the humiliation of enrolling themselves as members of some guild or
art if they wished to have political rights in the Republic. The poet was
not too proud to adopt this course, and was duly entered in the register
of the art of doctors and apothecaries. It was not necessary that he
should study medicine, the regulation being a mere form, probably to
carry out the idea that every citizen possessing the franchise should
have a trade of some kind.
The prosperity of the Republic was not destroyed by this petty
revolution. Churches were built and stones laid for the new walls of
Florence. Relations with other states demanded the services of a
gracious and tactful {24} embassy. Dante became an ambassador, and

was successful in arranging the business of diplomacy and in
promoting the welfare of his city. He was too much engaged in
important affairs to pay attention to every miserable quarrel of the
Florentines. The powerful Donati showed dangerous hostility now to
the wealthy Cerchi, their near neighbours. Dante acted as a mediator
when he could spare the time to hear complaints. He was probably
more in sympathy with the popular cause which was espoused by the
Cerchi than with the arrogance of his wife's family.
The feud of the Donati and Cerchi was fostered by the irruption of a
family from Pistoia, who had separated into two distinct branches--the
Bianchi and the Neri (the Whites and the Blacks)--and drawn their
swords upon each other. The Cerchi chose to believe that the Bianchi
were in the right, and, of course, the Donati took up the cause of the
Neri. The original dispute had long been forgotten, but any excuse
would serve two factions anxious to fight. Brawling took place at a
May festa, in which several persons were wounded.
Dante was glad to divert his mind from all his discords when the last
year of the thirteenth century came and he set out to Rome on
pilgrimage. At Easter all the world seemed to be flocking to that
solemn festival of the Catholic Church, where the erring could obtain
indulgence by fifteen days of devotion. Yet the very break in the usual
life of audiences and journeys must have been grateful to the tired
ambassador. He began to muse on the poetic aims of his first youth and
the work which was to make Beatrice's name immortal. Some lines of
the new poem were written in the Latin tongue, then held the finest
language for expressing a great subject. The poet had to abandon his
scheme for {25} a time at least, when he was made one of the Priors, or
supreme rulers, of Florence in June 1300.
There was some attempt during Dante's brief term of office to settle the
vexed question of the rival parties. Both deserved punishment, without
doubt, and received it in the form of banishment for the heads of the
factions. "Dante applied all his genius and every act and thought to
bring back unity to the republic, demonstrating to the wiser citizens
how even the great are destroyed by discord, while the small grow and

increase infinitely when at peace. . . ."
Apparently Dante was not always successful in his attempts to unite his
fellow-citizens. He talked of resignation sometimes and retirement into
private life, a proposal which was opposed by his friends in office.
When the losing side decided to ask Pope Boniface for an arbitrator to
settle their disputes, all Dante's spirit rose against their lack of
patriotism. He