Dante Alighieri

by Paget Toynbee

  No sooner were the Florentines returned home than it was decided without loss of time to send a strong force to attack the Aretines, in order to exact retribution for their continued ravages in the territories of Florence and of the allied Guelfs. On 2 June, 1289, the host marched out, with the Guelf banners and the royal standard of King Charles flying, and the bells sounding; “and there were assembled sixteen hundred horsemen and ten thousand foot, whereof six hundred horsemen were citizens of Florence, the best armed and the best mounted that ever went out even from Florence, and four hundred mercenaries together with the men-at-arms of the captain, M. Aimeri, in the pay of the Florentines; and from Lucca there were an hundred and fifty horsemen; and from Prato forty horse and foot; from Pistoja sixty horse and foot; and from Siena an hundred and twenty horsemen; and from Volterra forty horsemen; and from Bologna their envoys with their men-at-arms; and from San Miniato and from San Gemignano, and from Colle, there came horse and foot from each place; and Maghinardo of Susinana,5 a good and wise captain of war, came with his men from Romagna. And the said host being assembled, they descended into the plain of Casentino, laying waste the lands of Count Guido Novello, who was Podestà of Arezzo. And when the Bishop of Arezzo heard of this, he and the other Ghibelline captains, among whom were many of renown, determined to come with all their force to Bibbiena to prevent its being laid waste; and they were eight hundred horsemen and eight thousand foot, all picked men; and among them were many wise captains of war, the flower of the Ghibellines of Tuscany, and of the March,6 and of the Duchy,7 and of Romagna, all of them experienced in arms and warfare. And they challenged the Florentines to battle, having no fear, although the Florentines had twice as many horsemen as they, but they despised them, saying that they tricked themselves out and combed their tresses like women, laughing at them and holding them of no account. And the Florentines having joyfully accepted the gage of battle, the two hosts by common consent drew up their ranks and faced each other in battle array, more perfectly ordered on both sides than ever were hosts in Italy before this time; and the field of battle was on the plain at the foot of Poppi, in the district called Certomondo, for so the place is named, and a church of the Franciscans which is close by, and the plain is called Campaldino. And this was Saturday morning, the eleventh of June, on the day of St. Barnabas the Apostle.” 8

  Among the Florentine horsemen, according to the account of Leonardi Bruni,9 was Dante, “who fought vigorously on horseback in the front rank, where he was exposed to very grave danger; for the first shock of battle was between the opposing troops of horse, in which the Aretine cavalry charged the Florentine horsemen with such fury, that they were borne down, broken and routed, and driven back upon the foot-soldiers.” This rout of the Florentine cavalry was the cause of the defeat of the Aretines, whose victorious horsemen pursued the fugitives so far that their own foot-soldiers were left unsupported; consequently the Florentines, having rallied their horse, were enabled to crush first the Aretine cavalry and then their foot. Villani gives a detailed account of this important battle—important to us, owing to Dante’s presence, in a manner in which no one at that time could have foreseen—and of the miraculous way in which the tidings of the victory were brought to Florence.

  “M. Aimeri and the other captains of the Florentines drew up their troops in good order, setting an hundred and fifty of the best in the host to fight in the front,10 of whom twenty were new-made knights, dubbed on the field. And M. Vieri de’ Cerchi being one of the captains, and being lame of his leg, he would not on that account be excused from fighting in the front: and it falling to him to make the choice for his Sesto,11 he would not lay this burden on any who did not desire it of his own free will, but chose himself and his son and his nephews. And this thing was counted to him as of great merit; and after his good example, and for very shame, many other noble citizens set themselves in the fore-front of the host. And when this was done they flanked each wing with light-armed infantry, and crossbow-men, and foot-soldiers with long lances; and the main body to the rear of the forefront was also flanked by foot-soldiers; and in the rear of all was the baggage drawn up so as to support the main body, outside of which were stationed two hundred horse and foot of the Lucchese and the Pistojans and other allies; the captain of these was M. Corso Donati, at that time Podestà of Pistoja, whose orders were, if needful, to take the enemy in flank.

  “The Aretines on their side ordered their troops skilfully, inasmuch as they had, as we have said, good captains of war among them; and they set a strong body to fight in the front, to the number of three hundred, among whom were chosen twelve of the chief leaders, whom they styled the twelve paladins.12 And each side having adopted their war-cry, the Florentines ‘Nerbona’ and the Aretines ‘San Donato,’ the fore-front of the Aretine horsemen advanced with great daring at full speed to charge the host of the Florentines, and their remaining ranks followed close behind, except that Count Guido Novello, who was in command of a troop of an hundred and fifty horse for a flank attack, did not venture to join battle, but stood his ground, and then took to flight to his own territory.13 And the charge and attack of the Aretines against the Florentines was to the end that, being confident in their prowess, they might by their bold stroke break the Florentines at the first onset, and put them to flight. So great was the shock that the most part of the Florentine fore-front were unhorsed, and the main body was thrust back some way across the field, but for all that they were not dismayed nor thrown into confusion, but received the enemy steadily and bravely; and with the foot-soldiers drawn up on either flank they closed in on the enemy, fighting desperately for a good while. And M. Corso Donati, who was in charge of the reserve of Lucchese and Pistojans, and had been ordered to stand fast, and not to attack, under pain of death, when he saw the battle begun, said like a brave man: If we lose, I will die in the battle with my fellow-citizens; and if we win, let him come who will to Pistoja and exact the penalty; and he boldly moved out his troop, and took the enemy in flank, and was the main cause of their rout.

  “After this, as it pleased God, the Florentines had the victory, and the Aretines were routed and defeated; and there were killed more than seventeen hundred, horse and foot, and more than two thousand taken prisoners, whereof many of the best were got away secretly, some by their friends, and others for ransom; but seven hundred and forty of them were brought into Florence in bonds. Among the slain was M. Guglielmino degli Ubertini, Bishop of Arezzo, who was a great warrior, and M. Guglielmo de’ Pazzi of Valdarno and his nephews, who was the best and most crafty captain of war of his time in Italy; and there was killed too Buonconte, son of Guido da Montefeltro, and three of the Uberti, and one of the Abati, and many other exiles from Florence. On the side of the Florentines scarce one man of note was slain, but many both of the Florentines and of their allies were wounded.

  “The news of this victory came to Florence that very day, at the very hour it took place; for the Priors being gone to sleep and rest after their meal, by reason of their anxiety and watching the night before, suddenly there was a knocking on the door of their chamber, with the cry: Arise, for the Aretines are defeated; and having risen and opened the door, they found no one, and their servants outside had heard nothing, wherefore it was held to be a great and notable wonder, inasmuch as it was the hour of vespers before any one came from the host with the news. And this was the truth, for I heard it and saw it; and all the Florentines marvelled whence this could have come, and waited in suspense. But when the messengers from the host were come, and brought back the news to Florence, there was great gladness and rejoicing; as well there might be, for at this defeat were left dead many captains and brave men of the Ghibelline party, enemies of the commonwealth of Florence, and the arrogance and pride, not of the Aretines only, was brought down, but of the whole Ghibelline party and of the Empire.”14

  Of those who fought on the same side as Dante in this battle two, Vieri de’ Cerchi and the impetuous Corso Donati, were destined to p
lay an important part in the fortunes of Florence, and incidentally in those of Dante himself.

  One of the leaders on the opposite side, the Ghibelline Buonconte da Montefeltro, forms the subject of one of the most beautiful episodes in the Divina Commedia. Buonconte’s body, it seems, was never found after the battle, and Dante, when he meets him in the confines of Purgatory, asks him : “What violence, or what chance, carried thee so far astray from Campaldino, that thy burial-place was never known ?” Buonconte replies: “At the foot of the Casentino crosses a stream, named the Archiano; at the place where its name becomes void (i.e. at its junction with the Arno) I arrived, pierced in the throat, flying on foot, and staining the plain with blood. There I lost my sight, and my speech finished with the name of Mary, and there I fell, and my flesh remained alone. I will tell the truth, and do thou repeat it among the living. The Angel of God took me, and he of Hell cried out: ‘O thou from heaven, why dost thou rob me ? Thou bearest away for thyself the eternal part of this one, for one little tear which takes him from me; but of the other part I will make other governance.’ Then, when the day was spent, he covered the valley with cloud, from Pratomagno to the great ridge (of the Apennine), and made overcast the heaven above, so that the teeming air was turned to water. The rain fell, and to the trenches came so much of it as the earth did not endure; and as it gathered in great streams it rushed so swiftly towards the royal river that nothing held it back. The swollen Archiano found my body, cold, near its outlet, and thrust it into the Arno, and loosed on my breast the cross which I made of myself when the pain overcame me. It rolled me along its banks, and along the bottom, then with its spoil it covered me and girt me.”15

  Dante’s military experiences did not end, as probably they did not begin, with the battle of Campaldino. In the following August, in consequence of the death of the unhappy Count Ugolino, and of the expulsion of the Guelfs from Pisa, the Tuscan Guelfs, headed by the Florentines and Lucchese, invaded the Pisan territory, and ravaged it for the space of twenty-five days. During this time they laid siege to the castle of Caprona, about five miles from Pisa, which after eight days capitulated. By the terms of the surrender the garrison were allowed to march out under a safe-conduct from the besieging force. Dante tells us in the Divina Commedia that he was present on this occasion, and witnessed the alarm of the beleagured foot-soldiers, as they filed out between their enemies, lest the latter should not keep their compact.16

  There are other reminiscences in the Commedia of Dante’s campaigning days. One of these passages, in which he speaks of how “at times a horseman goes out at a gallop from his troop during the charge and seeks to win the honour of the first assault,” 17 is pretty certainly a recollection of what took place at the beginning of the battle of Campaldino. In another passage he gives a vivid picture of the various scenes he must have witnessed during the hostilities between Florence and Arezzo, including the running of the horse-races under the enemy’s walls, as the Florentines did before Arezzo the year before Campaldino:18—“I have seen ere now horsemen change their ground, and set out to charge, and make their muster, and sometimes fall back in their retreat; I have seen skirmishers overrun your land, men of Arezzo, and I have seen raiders go out, tourneys held, and jousts run, now with trumpets, now with bells, and with drums and with signals from castle-walls”.19 And elsewhere he describes a troop of soldiers manœuvring on the field, how they wheel with the banner at their head, as they change front under cover of their shields.20

  All these are indications that Dante’s military experiences were a very real part of his life, even though they occurred at the very time when, as we know from his own confession in the Vita Nuova, his mind was most deeply occupied with the thought of Beatrice and of his love for her. In less than a year after the triumphant return from Campaldino the loss of “his most gentle lady” was to turn gladness into mourning, so that, while all the world in Florence was feasting and rejoicing, to Dante, as he sat weeping in his chamber, the city was desolate—“How doth the city sit solitary,” he cries with Jeremiah, “she that was full of people! how is she become a widow, she that was great among the nations!”21

  * * *

  1 See Bullettino della Società Dantesca Italiana, No. 5-6 (1891), pp. 39-45.

  2 Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, who was secretary of the Florentine Republic from 1427 till his death in 1444. In his Vita di Dante he claims to have seen several letters of Dante in the poet’s own handwriting, which he describes as being “fine and slender and very accurate” (“era la lettera sua magra e lunga e molto corretta, secondo io ho veduto in alcune epistole di sua mano propria scritte” ;—elsewhere, in his Dialogus ad Petrum Histrum, speaking of Dante, he says: “Legi nuper quasdam eius litteras, quas ille videbatur peraccurate scripsisse: erant enim propria manu atque eius sigillo obsignatae”—quoted by Bartoli, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, v. 89). In this letter Dante is represented as saying that at the battle of Campaldino he was present “not as a child in arms” (“non fanciullo nell’ armi”)

  3 Villani, bk. vii. ch. 128; Inferno, xxxiii.

  4 Villani, bk. vii. ch. 130.

  5 Maghinardo, though a Ghibelline by birth, supported the Florentine Guelfs. His political inconsistency is alluded to by Dante, Inferno, xxvii. 51.

  6 Of Ancona.

  7 Of Spoleto.

  8 Villani, bk. vii. ch. 131.

  9 Bruni says that Dante in his letter gave an account of the battle, together with a plan: “Questa battaglia racconta Dante in una sua epistola, e dice esservi stato a combattere, e disegna la forma della battaglia,” Vita di Dante, ed. Brunone Bianchi, 1883, p. xv.

  10 It is probable from what Leonardo Bruni says that Dante was among these.

  11 One of the six divisions into which the city of Florence was at this time divided.

  12 Doubtless in allusion to the fact that they were opposed to Aimeri de Narbonne, a name familiar in the old Chansons de Geste as at one time a foe of Charlemagne and afterwards as one of his doughtiest warriors.

  13 This was the second time that Guido Novello distinguished himself by running away. The first occasion was when he abandoned Florence after the defeat of Manfred at Benevento (see above, pp. 32-3).

  14 Villani, bk. Vii. ch. 131.

  15 Purgatorio, v. 91-129.

  16 Inferno, xxi. 93-6.

  17 Purgatorio, xxiv. 94-6.

  18 Villani, bk. vii. ch.

  19 Inferno, xxii. 1-8.

  20 Purgatorio, xxxii. 19-24.

  21 Vita Nuova, §§ 29, 31; Lamentations, i. 1.

  CHAPTER III

  1291–1300

  Early studies—Brunetto Latino—Classical acquirements—Marriage—Gemma Donati—Children—Public life—Embassy to San Gemignano—Priorate.

  OF Dante’s studies during his early years we know but little for certain. From a misunderstanding of an expression in the Divina Commedia1 it has been assumed that he was a pupil of Brunetto Latino, a Florentine notary and statesman, who was the author of a book called the Trèsor, a sort of encyclopædia of the knowledge of the day, written in French. Brunetto could hardly have been Dante’s master, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, inasmuch as he was about fifty-five when Dante was born; besides which he was too constantly occupied with the affairs of the commonwealth to allow of his having leisure for teaching during the years of Dante’s boyhood.

  Already, when he was only eighteen, Dante had acquired the art of versifying, as he tells us in the Vita Nuova.2 And from the same source we know that he was to some extent practised in drawing, for he relates how on the first anniversary of Beatrice’s death, “remembering me of her as I sat alone, I betook myself to draw the resemblance of an angel upon certain tablets. And while I did thus, chancing to turn my head, I perceived that some were standing beside me to whom I should have given courteous welcome, and that they were observing what I did : also I learned afterwards that they had been there a while before I perceived them. Perceiving whom, I arose for salutation, and said:
Another was with me. Afterwards, when they had left me, I set myself again to mine occupation, to wit, to the drawing figures of angels.” 3